Thank you! What about when there's only one MOV between hot and neutral instead of a group of three, how does it pass that spike to ground? Or does it just pass it to neutral?

Ah, thank you! So when the protection light goes out, that's its way of telling you the clamping voltage is too high to be useful anymore?

The ground pin being at the top or bottom depends on what direction the outlet is orientated, it has nothing to do with this product. If the outlet is installed ground up, so will this protector sit that way.

It's not a fuse; fuses are protection for current (amps), surges are spikes in potential energy (volts).

It's a component (or multiple) called a MOV (metal oxide varistor). They divert surges to the ground pin, but somehow they also absorb the surges and fill to capacity eventually. I don't understand how they could do both because that seems contradictory, but I have yet to find a source that explains it properly.

Still, don't use it if the surge protection light goes out. If any additional surges come in after that, it could potentially violently blow up the MOVs (surge protection component). A good surge protector like a Tripp-Lite Isobar will cut power to the devices once the MOVs are used up.

You could open it and cut the MOVs out, and it would become a basic outlet splitter with no surge protection.

Apparently Boston has been owned by X-Acto since 1925.

People actually are capable of being careful with an item and treating it nicely in order to keep it pristine over the years, especially if it's something unusual that they care about. But even if it was just taken out of the box yesterday and it works, that's a good sign of its BIFL status. Many electronics that sit dormant for decades don't work because the capacitors and other parts spoil not being used.

I have an SOSL radio as well, different model, it has been in use almost daily for decades, and it looks almost this nice. Admittedly it is built pretty cheaply and has needed DeoxIT several times, but it still works otherwise. So while it may seem cheap, it has lasted this long and what didn't last was easily repirable. Don't judge a book by its cover.

(and by the way this is a manual post approval sub, the mods already saw this)

I wonder if Sharp made a pencil sharpener.

I didn't even know distillers are a thing! But wouldn't you have to clean those out too? lol

That becomes pretty impractical and expensive though when you need a gallon every two days or more.

Oh I meant portable fans, and by regularly I mean every 1-2 years or so. Compared to vintage fans that have run 50+ years with no maintenance, that's pretty regularly lol. Even motors made last decade were better than the ones today, a lot of new ones don't even have oil added at the factory anymore (Comfort Zone is notorious for this). Lasko tends to be better but the quality control is still pretty inconsistent.

You want a TPI or ILIVING. You won't find any motor made today that doesn't need to be regularly oiled, but at least those two have oil ports which will make it much easier. Air King which is owned by Lasko also makes a pretty good HV fan that uses ball bearings instead of sleeve bearings, which don't need oiling as often, but most of them ship with unbalanced blades so pick your poison.

PaRappa the Vacuum

Right? It's an element lol, the tech has not changed in a century.