I'm guessing this group has collectively seen everything. Equipment was installed in leased cabinet space in a data center just about 18 months ago. The data center has APC PDU's installed in the racks. Visual aid:
My colleague went there today because two servers were both intermittently reporting loss of AC input on one power supply. Both were in the same PDU and both were loose. He checked all the other cords while he was there and found a few other loose ones. He mentioned it to one of the data center employees who said we should get "V-Lock" cords. I've never seen one of those IEC power connectors fall out by itself, so it's bizarre that multiples did simultaneously. I looked up V-Lock and it's apparently a proprietary locking mechanism by Schurter. Apparently V-Lock receptacles have a cutout on the inside of the wider flat side of the connector..the side which is usually up on a PC. A V-Lock cord has a tab that clicks into that cutout, and you have to press a button to release the tab. I don't have the APC model number, but the cluster of six C13 receptacles on the APC PDU does look exactly like this item from the Schurter catalog: https://www.schurter.com/en/datasheet/4751. So it probably is a V-Lock. So locking cords sounds great, but I've never needed one before. Do the locking receptacles have less holding power than the normal IEC ones? I'm thinking maybe that cutout could let the plastic socket spread out more than normal.
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