The History of IEC power cords

Do you know what is actually running this whole world of internet, cinematics and computer science? It is power cords! If you don’t believe this fact, just unplug your system’s power cord. You will see a good for nothing dark screen because it is turned off. Power is still there your tools and systems are there. Still, you will not be able to use them and do anything without power cords.

So, with that assertion, we can say that Power Cords is one of the most crucially important tools. It is supplying energies from generations powering appliances for decades. Today there are a lot of different categories of IEC power Cords, which are technically advanced than its predecessors. Power cords have seen drastic changes in this long course of time.

Constant engineering and reengineering has made it more technically advanced, power savvy and secure to use. The latest and most modernized member of this power cord clan is IEC320 power cord. It is always interesting to go through the history of a product and see how it evolved since its inception.

Today, we will go through the history of power cords and will see, how time had advanced it with new changes.

Invention and Early Development

Systematic power distribution setup was first developed by Thomas Edison in 1882. He used copper wire wrapped with jute covered under Bituminous pipes. That was the first power cord invented. With the occurrence of time, new developments and improvisations took place. In 1906, first armored cable with properly vulcanized rubber was introduced, but did it was too much expensive to afford. Meanwhile and in later time as well, Aluminum came into use but it proved to be failed experiment. It was not safe because of corrosions.

The Revolution Time of Cords

The standard appliance connector became effective in 1920. In later years, appliance cords with earth clips were developed. Usage of larger pins came into the trend as they prevent arc formations and provide break free connectivity.

After constant gradual development for more than five decades, 1950 was the year of significant development in cords. This time, 2-wire cords were introduced, which were PVC insulated. This invention became the ground of 3-wire PVC insulated cords, which is the latest structure of cords that we are using.

Evolution of Protected Power Cord

In 1959, a German company introduced first IEC power cord. They brought three flat blade pins out of which, 2 were basic power pins and the third one was earth pin. The traditional metal caps, which used to be placed for earth connection were no longer a part of the pin. This innovation made cables safer and well-protected to use. The pins were placed in non-equilateral triangle form that gave it set direction to plug into a socket.

Introduction IEC Standards for IEC Power Cords

With extending use of appliances, which were operating mostly on power cords, IEC 320 Standards were introduced in 1970. IEC (International Electrotechnical Commission) standardized and defined specification for IEC 320 power cords. New improvements were added in following years. In 1994 with IEC 60320 standards, International Electrotechnical Commission revised its standards and defined 13 different connectors and inlets.

Today’s Era of IEC320 power cords

Today we are witnessing the finest generations of power cords. With the history more than 1.5 centuries, power cords are available with better standards, efficient performance and utmost security. With constant advancements in technology paralleled with day by day increasing demands, power cords have expanded its categories as well. There are numerous types of cords are available in the market out of which 13 are standardized ones. Different cords are available with different pinning methods and socket compatibilities.

These latest cables are empowered to work on higher power capacities as nicely as on lower power imputes. Whether you want to run big servers or just want to connect your phone with TV, IEC320 Power Cords can help you all the way.

So, this was a short and quick recap to the journey of power cords.

The history of these itself shows that the end product we are using today has gone through an adhered human attention, which led it to such gradual development.

Jennifer Truong is the owner of SF Cable, a california based online retailer of all kind of Computers, electronics, electrical accessories, networking accessories, cables, wires. Jennifer has extensive experience in the Electronics industry and blog.