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Plug vs. Plug — Which Nation's Socket Is Best?
CNETNate writes "Is the American mains socket really so much worse than the Italian design? And does the Italian socket fail at rivaling the sockets in British homes? This feature explores, in a not-at-all-parodic-and-anecdotal fashion, the designs, strengths and weaknesses of Earth's mains adapters. There is only one conclusion, and you're likely not to agree if you live in France. Or Italy. Or in fact most places." (For more plug pics and details, check out Wikipedia's list of the ones in current use.)
If there was some move to rewire the entire world with a single residential standard I'd vote for NEMA L15.
Single-phase power is a hack.
I started doing that when I saw them installed consistently like that in an industrial situation, but I didn't fully understand the reason. I do know that plugs are less likely to pull out due to weight on the plug like that.
Finally I asked an electrician. He said the reason is that if something falls on the plug, pulls it partly out, and makes contact with the prongs, it hits the earthing pin first rather than possibly hitting the hot lead first.
This is a pretty ingenious solution to the bulk problem of the UK plug: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f6DvjKkGT6s
I kind of like Australia's socket design. In the US, our NEMA sockets are designed so that a plug for a 30A socket can't plug into a 15A socket or vice versa. In the Australian design, a higher current plug can't plug into a lower-current socket, but a lower-current plug *can* plug into a higher current socket. Which only makes sense.
Of course, all of them are pretty weak compared to EV charging connectors like J1772. Designed for 10,000 connect/disconnect cycles, and the power pins don't go live until the data pins confirm a connection. And the data pins can talk with the device to determine what kind of power to deliver.
sed "s/SJW.*$/... never mind. I was about to say something stupid, and also, I'm a troglodyte./Ig"
Having lived in the US, UK, Malaysia and France, I would concurr that the British plug system is far better. It was properly thought, and universally implemented across the country 50 years ago using an act of parliment on the premise that using anything else was dangerous and therefore potentially negligent. More features have been added since then (including household earth-leakage trip sensing).
I've had problems with a French pin snapping in a socket leaving an exposed live pin for my 3-year-old son to play with (luckily I spotted it in time and managed to cover it).
In the US I almost got used to the risk of shocks off electrical appliances. I also had a lab fire destroy some of my work because somebody had knocked out the cable of the pump supplying the coolant.
In Malaysia where the national standard specifies the british plug type, the biggest issue was that cheap Chinese imports sometimes didn't use it.
When basic safety is involved, I don't think that it's over-engineering. Your comment about extra points of failure doesn't make any sense.
Sure, but belt-and-suspenders is a good philosophy when it comes to something like this. When you take your laptop and plug it into the hotel outlet, you're trusting whoever wired that outlet to have done it to code. It almost always is, but the one time it isn't could be the one that damages the laptop or takes your life.
GFI and fuses are apples and oranges. Fuses and circuit breakers are current overload protection. Ground Fault Interruption protects against current moving in a path it was not intended to (e.g. between hot and ground rather than hot and neutral). There are plenty of ways to kill yourself with current moving between hot and neutral as intended. You can use more current on the cord than the circuit is rated for. You plug your 2A cord into a 20A circuit, and you can start a fire by drawing 10A and the GFI is happy as a clam. Your laptop is off and your frayed cord is drawing one amp because of the current that is currently melting the plastic in the cord. In that case not only is the GFI and circuit breaker happy to let you start that fire, the 2A fuse in your plug is too. You need arc-fault detection.
GFI units include a circuit breaker, so yes, there is redundancy. I'm assuming the UK codes don't let you wire buildings without circuit breakers, so it's not like the UK relies on plug fuses exclusively and the US on circuit breakers. If I am correct, then the UK has redundant current overload protection where the US does not. GFI handles ground faults, of course, but that's almost not relevant in many cases, e.g. non-grounded equipment which is supposed to have an electrically isolated case. Of course you'll want GFI if you're in the habit of using your laptop in the bathtub, but in most cases arc-fault interruption would be even more desirable.
Imagine a world where you have overload protection in your device (e.g. laptop), in the power cord plug, in the circuit breaker panel; the breaker panel also provides arc and ground fault protection. People would *still* die from electrical faults in that world, although many fewer. If you assume everything works perfectly, you can install all your protection at the breaker panel. In fact, in such a perfect world, all you'd need is current overload protection at the panel, and the odd GFI here and there to protect the people who use their laptop in the bathtub. But in the real world, you can't count on anything working, as advertised, including any of the fancy stuff you install in the panel.
In any case, the outlets in the US design wear out too quickly, in my opinion. It's a lot like the original USB design, which was fine for plugging your printer in and leaving it plugged in for the life of your system or your printer. The plug was not designed for lots of connect/disconnect cycles.
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Admittedly, I'm an American but I will back up my points.
220V is too much for everyday electronics. Why does your vacuum cleaner or table lamp need 220V? I do understand that the amperage is lower (half) for the same wattage. However, if there's a fault in an appliance, and the current carrying lead is exposed, you can touch the conductor without anything more than severe discomfort (wouldn't even call it pain - this has happened to me with a bad light socket). I doubt you could pull this off with 220V. Obviously completing a circuit on either is a bad thing (touching between current and ground...)
Second, ring circuits are for very specific things. I understand the UK uses a ring circuit for pretty much every floor. In the US, we use home runs for important things and limit ring circuits to, say, the 4-5 outlets around the perimeter of the room, generally one room, about a foot off the floor. Those usually run at about 15 amps - enough for a powerful vacuum cleaner, but generally not a microwave. Those run off a (dedicated) 20A circuit, same as a fridge. Other appliances, generally those with electric heating elements (such as a range, water heater, furnace, machines such as a tablesaw) run off dedicated 220V circuits.
The upshot of this is the US has many more circuit breakers, and a lot more granularity. A typical house has about 30-40 circuit breakers, maybe more. But a circuit breaker controls, say, half of a room - instead of the entire first floor. UK plugs are fused, so the appliances are about as safe, but that doesn't fix the problem of not wanting to disconnect a whole floor to work on the electrical system. And you start limiting the current from the distribution point - if you drive a nail through a wire, it will only be carrying 15, maybe 20A before the circuit breaker blows. That's opposed to the 220V at 40A...
Basically, in general there's a lot less current flowing through people's walls. The appliances that need more power get their own entire circuits. I can't help but feel that this is safer, and it allows us to reduce the complexity of our plugs.
I'd honestly like to hear why people disagree - as I'm sure they will.
I have developed a truly marvelous proof of this comment, which this signature is too narrow to contain.
The best system in the world, for real, is a combination of the Europlug and the Schuko plug. Proper Europlugs and Schuko plugs have bodies which fit partly into the wall so the load is not taken by the pins. The Europlug pins are partly insulated so if you can see metal, it's safe. You can fit lots of them onto a power strip, so a strip for electronics can have many connectors in a small space while a power extender can give you 16A in a small footprint.
The reason the UK still has the BS1363 plug is because it has square pins, and the manufacturers thought the Chinese would not want to invest in special tooling to make them when they had the world of round pins or cheap strip pins (as in US) to go after. Then Mrs. Thatcher came along and they decided to let the Chinese make them anyway.
Every time you buy a computer in the UK you get a BS 1363 to IEC lead and a Schuko to IEC lead. That's how cheap they are: manufacturers throw them away rather than be bothered to have two different SKUs.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
An American created open source. A Finn couldn't figure out how to get write an OS and talked other people into doing it for him.
Are we going to keep doing this nationalist crap, or can we realize it take people from every country to progress?
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Apparently, it's a common feature in the UK to have a single high current line supplying most of the house. In the US, there would be several breakers and several wires for the same purpose.
I like the UK scheme. It's more economical and more rugged. Protection is provided where it's needed, at the individual plug. The big disadvantage is that if you do manage to make a good solid short at one outlet, you trip the main breaker and the whole house goes dark.
The UK uses 240 V, which also reduces wiring losses in the house This is a big deal in these days of conservation, and it's nice not to have the lights dim when you switch on a vacuum cleaner.
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Making the rounds of the blogs and TV shows is the story of William Kamkwamba, a young man from Malawi who, at age 14, taught himself enough about electricity to build a windmill generator for his house. But what kills me is that he made a GFCI from ... nails, wire and a magnet. Look at this video of his appearance on The Daily Show last month, specifically starting 2 minutes in, and note his description of what it does. (here's a picture) He calls it a circuit breaker, but that is functionally actually a GFCI! Jesus H. Christ, that is brilliant!
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