cord with male connector on both ends

[don_resqcapt19]

Way back when I was in high school, I worked on the stage lighting for the school plays. There were a number of two wire cords with two male ends stored with the old stage lighting equipment. I never did figure out what they were for.

 

[ggunn]

Way back when I was in high school, I worked on the stage lighting for the school plays. There were a number of two wire cords with two male ends stored with the old stage lighting equipment. I never did figure out what they were for.

I think I know. I have seen homemade PAR cans fabricated from stovepipe. They had circles of wood stuck in one end with a porcelain lamp holder on the inside wired to a 120V receptacle in a metal box on the outside. They used the cords that are the subject of this thread to connect them to power and to daisy chain them to each other. I'm not saying that they were a good design, of course.

 

[JDBrown]

Way back when I was in high school, I worked on the stage lighting for the school plays. There were a number of two wire cords with two male ends stored with the old stage lighting equipment. I never did figure out what they were for.

I think I know. I have seen homemade PAR cans fabricated from stovepipe. They had circles of wood stuck in one end with a porcelain lamp holder on the inside wired to a 120V receptacle in a metal box on the outside. They used the cords that are the subject of this thread to connect them to power and to daisy chain them to each other. I'm not saying that they were a good design, of course.

And here I thought those cords were for getting rid of the crew members you didn't like. "Hey, hold onto this plug for a second..." :angel:

 

[GoldDigger]

And here I thought those cords were for getting rid of the crew members you didn't like. "Hey, hold onto this plug for a second..." :angel:

For one show I worked (amateur), we needed to fire off a couple of flash/smoke pots.
The pots, to which you added the powder, were open cans with a wood base and two screws at the bottom which attached to zip cord. To fire it you took one strand of wire from an 18ga stranded cord and wound it between the screws, then measured the powder in. To set it off you just applied 120V to it.
Needless to say, we had to be very careful that the non-dim switch we wired it to was off before plugging it in.

 

[zbang]

The pots, to which you added the powder, were open cans with a wood base and two screws at the bottom which attached to zip cord. To fire it you took one strand of wire from an 18ga stranded cord and wound it between the screws, then measured the powder in. To set it off you just applied 120V to it.
Needless to say, we had to be very careful that the non-dim switch we wired it to was off before plugging it in.

Ah yes, I remember (and built) some of those back in the mid 1970s, and got the flash powder at a camera store. My lockout was to unplug both ends of the extn feeding the pot.

 

[kwired]

Way back when I was in high school, I worked on the stage lighting for the school plays. There were a number of two wire cords with two male ends stored with the old stage lighting equipment. I never did figure out what they were for.

They had electric lights in the schools then?

 

[GoldDigger]

They had electric lights in the schools then?

I think they were arc lamps.

 

[tom baker]

When I was a mechanic in the Navy, we were on a work barge while the ship was being overhauled. The electricians were in the room next door and they had a siren they would plug in every morning at 8:00 am. We were not happy with the electricians as they had cut the plug off of our coffee pot when it kept blowing a fuse.
So I wired up a second male plug (in parallel with theirs) - they plug theirs in, I plug mine in. Siren starts. They unplug theirs, siren does not stop. A lot of confusion and then "hey shut that thing off". Great fun for us.
But later it was pointed out how dangerous this was.
Like I said I was just a mechanic. Well a nuke if you know what that is.

 

[gadfly56]

Way back when I was in high school, I worked on the stage lighting for the school plays. There were a number of two wire cords with two male ends stored with the old stage lighting equipment. I never did figure out what they were for.

If they had honking big "tip and ring" connectors on them, they might have been patch cords for an old Kliegl lighting panel that had long since been removed.

 

[gadfly56]

Ah yes, I remember (and built) some of those back in the mid 1970s, and got the flash powder at a camera store. My lockout was to unplug both ends of the extn feeding the pot.

Somewhere I think I still have the flash pot "control panel" that my dad made up one time out of a standard metal cash box. There were three receptacles, each with its own switch, and a master arming switch. Compared to what I've seen in community theatre on a regular basis, this was super high tech.