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up vote 6 down vote favorite

Some kind of socket

I found it in my apartment's wall.

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Which wall? Kitchen? Basement? – Synetech Aug 5 '12 at 18:06
A wall in the living room. – StackedCrooked Aug 5 '12 at 18:08
Is that the front or back? o.O – Synetech Aug 5 '12 at 18:24

migrated from superuser.com Aug 5 '12 at 18:06

2 Answers

up vote 7 down vote accepted

Yes, indeed it is a Belgian phone socket.

http://www.levoyageur.net/phone-country-Belgium.html

The four pins match the four holes in your socket. The firth pin is just there to make sure you don't put it in upside down. There's a hole for it too.

This is how it looks with a cover (except for the RJ jack that you may not have)

http://www.p-wholesale.com/cn-pro/5/121to2/phone-jack-91449.html

Below I mark the five pins and the switch at the center. The switch is opened by the b and S pins indicating that the socket is used. This is common for phone sockets.

Picture showing the socket with markers

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Great! But, how does that link indicate that what can be seen on my picture is a phone connection? – StackedCrooked Aug 5 '12 at 18:25
It probably is a phone socket, but it looking at the photo, it doesn’t look like there’s anywhere for the four pins to go in, let alone the fifth. Surely it’s the back and the other side is in another room. – Synetech Aug 5 '12 at 18:42
@Synetech, no... – Johan Lundberg Aug 5 '12 at 19:24
up vote 4 down vote

I’m not familiar with outlets in Belgium, but assuming they are typical European outlets, then it looks to be a high-voltage stove/oven or dryer electrical outlet (why it would be in the living room though is beyond me).

The labels for the four connectors (a, b, S, ground) are curious, but presumably they are hot (a), hot (b), neutral (S), and ground:

enter image description here

There are also two other connectors (c, d here) which are specifically part of a stove/oven outlet as opposed to a dryer outlet:

enter image description here

enter image description here

enter image description here

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Any chance of it being a phone socket? – StackedCrooked Aug 5 '12 at 18:16
@StackedCrooked, it’s possible, but in the photo it looks too big. How big is it? Also, are there any like it in other rooms? – Synetech Aug 5 '12 at 18:18
It's rather small. Here's another pic. I haven't seen any other ones like this. – StackedCrooked Aug 5 '12 at 18:24
Ah, then yes, it is a phone outlet. – Synetech Aug 5 '12 at 18:26
@Synetech, I don’t know why one person down-voted. The answer was perfectly good based on the close-up. The other person simply un—up-voted to remove it. :roll: – Synetech Aug 5 '12 at 20:11
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