Yeah you only find these outlets here and there because there’s a specific use case.
NEMA 5-15 is only rated for 125V. The IEC C13 & C14 connectors are rated for up to 250 Volt. The equipment PSU’s are of course sold internationally so they’re almost always fine with up to 250V. So if your building is wired with 3-phase, and you have a 3-phase UPS, then you can use these cables to run 208V to your equipment. I assume they gain a few % efficiency using 208V for power distribution, and with a lot of equipment a few % adds up to real money. In that data center all of those outlets are 208V and that’s why they’re all IEC connectors. It’s probably the same thing anywhere else you find them, and you probably wouldn’t find them anywhere wired with 120V circuits. IEC obviously would work with 120V just fine, but there’s no reason to since the cord you get for free with every device has NEMA plugs on the male end. Yeah, you would need an adapter to plug in a wall wart. C14 to 5-15R. It’s a $3 item, but you do have to make sure you have one if you need it. You can MacGuyver it with a pair of paper clips (if you want to get kicked out of the datacenter). One convenience is the C13 and C14 are the corresponding male & female connections, so if your 5 ft cord doesn’t reach somewhere you can just marry two of them to get 10ft. That’s a small thing, the bigger thing is the voltage obviously. -Adam From: AF <af-boun...@af.afmug.com> On Behalf Of Ken Hohhof Sent: Wednesday, January 31, 2024 1:10 PM To: 'AnimalFarm Microwave Users Group' <af@af.afmug.com> Subject: Re: [AFMUG] APC PDU and V-Lock Sorry, the only PDUs I’ve encountered had ordinary NEMA 5-15R or 5-20R receptacles. Lots of equipment with IEC connectors but at the other end of the power cord. Like HP servers or Mikrotik routers, often with the wire bail that you can flip over the plug to lock it in place. I don’t think I have a single power cord that’s IEC on both ends. Are IEC connectors like metric rack screws now, standard unless you’re a dinosaur? Or are those PDUs a space saving approach in datacenter cabinets? One thing’s for sure, you’re not going to plug any wall warts into them unless you have a shorty power cable. From: AF <af-boun...@af.afmug.com <mailto:af-boun...@af.afmug.com> > On Behalf Of dmmoff...@gmail.com <mailto:dmmoff...@gmail.com> Sent: Wednesday, January 31, 2024 11:57 AM To: 'AnimalFarm Microwave Users Group' <af@af.afmug.com <mailto:af@af.afmug.com> > Subject: Re: [AFMUG] APC PDU and V-Lock Thanks. Maybe nobody here has had V-Lock PDU’s? I don’t know if it’s the general case that they’re looser, or is it just this particular PDU (or the cord). From: AF <af-boun...@af.afmug.com <mailto:af-boun...@af.afmug.com> > On Behalf Of Bill Prince Sent: Wednesday, January 31, 2024 10:41 AM To: af@af.afmug.com <mailto:af@af.afmug.com> Subject: Re: [AFMUG] APC PDU and V-Lock We had some cords that could get pulled out in a couple of data centers, and we ended up rigging a "holder" of sorts with zip-ties. Made it a PITA to pull the occasional cord, but we never had one fall out, and we didn't have to resort to someones proprietary cord lock. bp <part15sbs{at}gmail{dot}com> On 1/30/2024 5:24 PM, dmmoff...@gmail.com <mailto:dmmoff...@gmail.com> wrote: 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.
-- AF mailing list AF@af.afmug.com http://af.afmug.com/mailman/listinfo/af_af.afmug.com
