Rework power plug/sockets for Sheila

[amcewen]

The other day Brian noticed that the plug for Sheila has a hole in the side of it. He replaced the plug with a new one, which was very good because this is what it looked like inside:

I think it would be sensible to reduce the number of things plugged into that socket - at present there's the laser-cutter (so cutter, chiller and compressor) plus the PC and monitor.

I don't think it's great for the PC that it can get turned off without shutting down, so that (and the monitor) would be good candidates to move to a separate extension.

It'd be good to get a switch for the wall in the same manner as Gerald has.

[amcewen]

I think we should get one of these isolators (we could probably get away without the switched neutral version, but it's only £2 more) and a 5m 3-way extension lead

I'll double-check 5m will be long enough (and that we really only want to switch three things) next time I'm in.

[amcewen]

A 5m extension won't be long enough, a 10m one would be best.

I've ordered the isolator and a 10m 3-way extension lead from CPC.

[amcewen]

These have arrived, and are next to my desk at the moment, until we can wire it up and PAT test it

[magman2112]

@amcewen and I put this together last Maker Night, but unfortunately, we actually need a larger multiblock to power the computer and monitor. The new multiblock is a 3 way version, with the computer, monitor, laser chiller and air assist we actually need 5 sockets.

I didn’t have time to sort this out at the time, but I should be able to swap one of the larger multiblocks out this maker night.

[amcewen]

It was a three-way socket for a reason. From the original description:

I think it would be sensible to reduce the number of things plugged into that socket - at present there's the laser-cutter (so cutter, chiller and compressor) plus the PC and monitor.

I don't think it's great for the PC that it can get turned off without shutting down, so that (and the monitor) would be good candidates to move to a separate extension.

[amcewen]

@magman2112 pointed out that there aren't enough readily-accessible sockets in the laser-room to plug in the required number of extensions, because of #1829, so that's another nudge towards getting the electrician to come in and fix things.

[zarino]

Out of interest, I wonder whether an alternative (maybe temporary) solution might be to replace the PC + Monitor (which it sounds like require two power sockets) with the iMac (just one power socket!) currently sitting unused in Room 29? I think @johnmckerrell was partway through the process of erasing and reinstalling an OS on it, and I’d mentioned to him that, given its age, perhaps it should be running Linux rather than an unsupported (and therefore insecure) version of Mac OS X / macOS. Don’t know whether the Laser Room PCs need to run Windows, or whether a Windows-like Linux flavour would do, but just a thought!

[amcewen]

Nice idea @zarino, but unfortunately Sheila is still using LaserCut, which requires 32-bit Windows (and we're only looking for one more socket on the wall, as we'd need an extension to get round to Sheila's PC anyway). In the short term, we're hoping Sheila will be relocated in #1833.