XPost: alt.home.repair, uk.d-i-y   
   From: andrew@cucumber.demon.co.uk   
      
   On 04/03/2019 00:43, Roger Hayter wrote:   
   > I don't know when the last public DC mains supply was replaced, but I   
   > tend to think that AC/DC TVs were actually designed to work on DC mains   
   > up to the early 1950s at least.   
      
   There were DC mains supplies to the late 1970's in areas like London's   
   West End which were used by the theatres for arc lamps. Apparently also   
   used for many lift and escalator motors. University College London used   
   it too, and not just in their (at the time) Bloomsbury Theatre. We had   
   220VDC mains sockets in the physics labs, which I used for a carbon arc   
   lamp at one point. (The sockets were like 15A round pin sockets, but the   
   earth pin was nearer to the live pins.) By 1983 (and probably a year or   
   two before), the DC mains supply had ceased and it was generated locally   
   on site instead.   
      
   Of course, DC supply was something specialised at this point, and not   
   provided to standard consumers - only those with a specific requirement.   
      
   --   
   Andrew   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)