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[YouTube]: American is impressed by sensible British mains plug design
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SiliconWizard:
Don't worry too much about mains plugs. If everything keeps going as it is now, we should end up with no mains power to deal with, so mains plugs will be purely decorative.
 :-DD
Simon:

--- Quote from: Halcyon on October 20, 2022, 10:11:31 am ---
--- Quote from: eti on October 20, 2022, 09:15:52 am ---Please expand on “even better”; in what aspects? By looking at it, I don’t see it. Thanks. :)

--- End quote ---

They are typically a solid moulded plug, so less components to corrode or wear out like the fuse holder/fuse itself.

No need to worry about fuses (particularly of the wrong rating). Over-current protection here is typically built into the product itself AND at the switchboard (which also have RCDs).

No need to worry about loose or incorrect wiring inside the plug, or broken strain relief.

You can pull them directly out of the wall and break the circuit but pulling directly on the cable. Either through laziness or in an emergency.

They have a smaller profile, while still allowing for variants up to 32 amps.

Whilst right-angled plugs do exist, they aren't common. The risk of stepping on the pins of an up-turned plug is negligible.

They fit nicely through smaller round holes that have been drilled out in desks, panels, cabinets etc...


--- End quote ---

Hm, well fuses were put in to protect the appliances cable and it means that a ring main is possible which saves a lot of copper. This is because you fuse the main board at 32A, this fuse protects the house wiring, not the devices wiring. Other systems run a wire through the house for each socket using more copper.

There are plenty of moulded UK plugs, like every IEC cable you get with a piece of equipment. These have a fuse still that can be changed.

Ours are a bit clunky yes.

I lived in Italy for some of my life so have used other plugs, I never found much advantage is the Italian/European system.
james_s:

--- Quote from: Simon on October 21, 2022, 04:34:38 pm ---Hm, well fuses were put in to protect the appliances cable and it means that a ring main is possible which saves a lot of copper. This is because you fuse the main board at 32A, this fuse protects the house wiring, not the devices wiring. Other systems run a wire through the house for each socket using more copper.

--- End quote ---

Do they? I've never seen a star arrangement but maybe it exists somewhere. In North America receptacles are daisy chained, like a ringmain without the final segment that loops back to the panel. The ringmain does allow thinner wire to be used, but it's not allowed here, primarily for the reason that if the ring becomes open somehow there is no indication of failure but now you can overload the wire.

A weak point of our system is that receptacle circuits are usually protected by a 20A breaker while most of our plugs have no fuse at all, so it relies on an appliance being internally fused to protect its cord. Extension cords can be dangerous because they are not fused.
CatalinaWOW:
I have to agree that the British plug has more intrinsic safety features than any of the much less standardized US plugs.  But it is significantly larger which has a number of disadvantages.

I spent some time googling around, looking for data that might indicate that the greater intrinsic safety of the British plug is worth it.  It turns out that it would take a fair amount of time to sort out, and it may not be possible.  The searches turned up no consistently recorded data, and a surprisingly small amount of data overall.  The overall impression I got was that the vast majority of electrical accidents (and definitely the fatal ones) occur in industrial settings.  Lightning seems to be the next problem and home accidents are a distant third.  This trend seems to be world wide.

One interesting thing was that the data is usually divided into "low voltage" and "high voltage" injuries.  Low voltage being anything under 1000 volts so no distinction between US and British distribution systems.

I found nothing that would definitively sort out the contribution of plug design, just some off hand comments which may indicate it is a minor player.  Apparently a big part of electrical injuries to children is biting through a power cord, something that is independent of plug design.

So I guess at this point I just have to say cheers, and congratulations on having a better polished safety apple.
james_s:

--- Quote from: CatalinaWOW on October 21, 2022, 05:21:09 pm ---I found nothing that would definitively sort out the contribution of plug design, just some off hand comments which may indicate it is a minor player.  Apparently a big part of electrical injuries to children is biting through a power cord, something that is independent of plug design.

--- End quote ---

Pets too, although that probably doesn't get reported. My girlfriend fostered a dog a while back that had a habit of chewing on things. She chewed the cord off the floor lamp and ironically it was the worn out crappy receptacle that very likely saved the dog's life by allowing the plug to fall out of the wall before she had chewed through it.
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