Author Topic: [YouTube]: American is impressed by sensible British mains plug design  (Read 14878 times)

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Online tom66

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Re: [YouTube]; American is impressed by sensible British mains plug design
« Reply #25 on: October 20, 2022, 04:09:20 pm »
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Pretty sure that's nonsense, even if cable is 4mm^2 the BS1363 plug is definitely not rated for more than 13A and socket ring mains are typically installed with 32A MCBs.
What is the maximum current available at the pins of a 13A plug? Why is there a fuse in the plug? and what is the rating of 4mm flex?

PFC for our property was over 1kA - and we're quite far from the substation.

So you would want some kind of protection for the plug, which the fuse & MCB provide, but the MCB protects the 4mm^2 cable (or 2.5mm^2 cable in a ring) from CU to the socket, whereas the fuse protects the plug and cable.

Technically there's a complication with this arrangement where a double socket is only rated to ca 20A even though the combined load potential is 26A.
 

Online themadhippy

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Re: [YouTube]; American is impressed by sensible British mains plug design
« Reply #26 on: October 20, 2022, 04:24:32 pm »
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So you would want some kind of protection for the plug, which the fuse & MCB provide, but the MCB protects the 4mm^2 cable (or 2.5mm^2 cable in a ring) from CU to the socket, whereas the fuse protects the plug and cable.
If you dig into the regs youll find a  bit that says a protective device shall be fitted were theres a reduction in the current capacity of the circuit,and thats why us brits put a fuse in our plugs,nothing to do with protecting the equipment,4mm flex cord,non armoured is rated for 32A,so following the regs theres no reduction in the current capacity of the circuit and so no fuse is required
 

Online tom66

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Re: [YouTube]; American is impressed by sensible British mains plug design
« Reply #27 on: October 20, 2022, 04:26:58 pm »
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So you would want some kind of protection for the plug, which the fuse & MCB provide, but the MCB protects the 4mm^2 cable (or 2.5mm^2 cable in a ring) from CU to the socket, whereas the fuse protects the plug and cable.
If you dig into the regs youll find a  bit that says a protective device shall be fitted were theres a reduction in the current capacity of the circuit,and thats why us brits put a fuse in our plugs,nothing to do with protecting the equipment,4mm flex cord,non armoured is rated for 32A,so following the regs theres no reduction in the current capacity of the circuit and so no fuse is required

I'm fully aware the fuse has nothing to do with protecting the equipment.  However, the fuse also protects the plug and by extension the socket as well, and the BS1363 plug and socket is not rated to exceed 13 amps, therefore it is still required with 4mm^2 cable.  I can tell you having used a 10 amp electric car charger for some time on a BS1363 socket/plug that they don't like extended high current operation and begin to overheat,  a safe limit is around 8 amps. The idea of 32 amps being OK with the right cable is farcical.

(Heaven forbid the poor sod trying to get 4mm^2 into a BS1363, but I suppose that's another matter.)
 

Online themadhippy

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Re: [YouTube]; American is impressed by sensible British mains plug design
« Reply #28 on: October 20, 2022, 04:59:58 pm »
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  The idea of 32 amps being OK with the right cable is farcical.
But thats not what i said,i said with a greater than 4mm cable we wouldn't need a fuse in the plug There is a 13A  plugs without a fuse,they were red in colour stamped with "medical use only" and not available to the general public
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Heaven forbid the poor sod trying to get 4mm^2 into a BS1363, but I suppose that's another matter.
Easy with mk plug tops and hof 7 cable,6mm is a bit of a struggle though
 

Offline james_s

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Re: [YouTube]; American is impressed by sensible British mains plug design
« Reply #29 on: October 20, 2022, 05:38:39 pm »
I like the British plugs, I got a bag of them at CPC when I visited there years ago and use them for 240V stuff on the bench. They're nice solid plugs that fit firmly in the receptacle. The thing I don't like about them though is they are huge, power strips are bulky and clunky and have relatively few receptacles on them and extension cord ends are enormous. They tend to land on the floor with the prongs facing up and it really hurts to step on one too.
 
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Online SiliconWizard

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Re: [YouTube]; American is impressed by sensible British mains plug design
« Reply #30 on: October 20, 2022, 07:42:17 pm »
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
 
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Offline Simon

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Re: [YouTube]; American is impressed by sensible British mains plug design
« Reply #31 on: October 21, 2022, 04:34:38 pm »
Please expand on “even better”; in what aspects? By looking at it, I don’t see it. Thanks. :)

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...


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.
 
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Offline james_s

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Re: [YouTube]; American is impressed by sensible British mains plug design
« Reply #32 on: October 21, 2022, 05:08:44 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.

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.
 

Offline CatalinaWOW

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Re: [YouTube]; American is impressed by sensible British mains plug design
« Reply #33 on: October 21, 2022, 05:21:09 pm »
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.
 

Offline james_s

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Re: [YouTube]; American is impressed by sensible British mains plug design
« Reply #34 on: October 21, 2022, 05:26:02 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.

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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Offline pcprogrammer

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Re: [YouTube]; American is impressed by sensible British mains plug design
« Reply #35 on: October 21, 2022, 07:08:31 pm »
Do they? I've never seen a star arrangement but maybe it exists somewhere.

In the Netherlands it is standard practice. A single connection box in the ceiling from which the sockets and the lighting in the room are connected. To ensure not sitting in the dark when a circuit breaker trips the hallway is wired from a different breaker.

Here is a video on what is called a "centraaldoos"


Online coppice

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Re: [YouTube]; American is impressed by sensible British mains plug design
« Reply #36 on: October 21, 2022, 07:12:18 pm »
Many people like the British plug until they step on one.
 
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Offline james_s

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Re: [YouTube]; American is impressed by sensible British mains plug design
« Reply #37 on: October 21, 2022, 08:22:05 pm »
Many people like the British plug until they step on one.

They're not as bad as TO3 transistors.
 

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Re: [YouTube]; American is impressed by sensible British mains plug design
« Reply #38 on: October 21, 2022, 08:49:03 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.

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.

Check out the technology connections youtube channel, he analyses the system to bits.
 

Online Monkeh

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Re: [YouTube]; American is impressed by sensible British mains plug design
« Reply #39 on: October 21, 2022, 09:03:57 pm »
Check out the technology connections youtube channel, he analyses the system to bits.

And I don't recall him showing 'a wire for each socket' - circuits are usually wired as radials, point to point. The star arrangement pcprogrammer points out is fairly unusual but quite logical if you're operating on a circuit-per-room basis.
 

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Re: [YouTube]; American is impressed by sensible British mains plug design
« Reply #40 on: October 21, 2022, 09:23:32 pm »
Check out the technology connections youtube channel, he analyses the system to bits.

And I don't recall him showing 'a wire for each socket' - circuits are usually wired as radials, point to point. The star arrangement pcprogrammer points out is fairly unusual but quite logical if you're operating on a circuit-per-room basis.

I mean he goes to town an the way the US system works and points out flaws particularly in the US extension cords. Ultimately different places found different ways to solve the same problem.
 

Online Monkeh

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Re: [YouTube]; American is impressed by sensible British mains plug design
« Reply #41 on: October 21, 2022, 09:26:06 pm »
Check out the technology connections youtube channel, he analyses the system to bits.

And I don't recall him showing 'a wire for each socket' - circuits are usually wired as radials, point to point. The star arrangement pcprogrammer points out is fairly unusual but quite logical if you're operating on a circuit-per-room basis.

I mean he goes to town an the way the US system works and points out flaws particularly in the US extension cords. Ultimately different places found different ways to solve the same problem.

Ah, yes, he is quite critical of the design and products in that area, rightfully so.
 

Offline james_s

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Re: [YouTube]; American is impressed by sensible British mains plug design
« Reply #42 on: October 22, 2022, 02:02:26 am »
I mean he goes to town an the way the US system works and points out flaws particularly in the US extension cords. Ultimately different places found different ways to solve the same problem.

It's the price we pay for having a system that was developed very early and that largely has retained backward compatibility for more than a century.

That said, for all its warts the North American system works pretty well and is fairly safe, you don't hear about consumers getting electrocuted very often and save for houses built during the Vietnam war with aluminum wiring, electrical fires caused by the wiring are fairly rare. Like every other system around the world it has advantages and disadvantages, and it gets the job done. I've discussed at length with a British friend over the years and we've both concluded that there is no clear winner between the two.
 

Online IanB

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Re: [YouTube]; American is impressed by sensible British mains plug design
« Reply #43 on: October 22, 2022, 02:11:39 am »
The spring-loaded gate, activated by the PE terminal (in the form of a screwdriver insertion during wiring), held them in place.

Amusingly, that doesn't work anymore with the latest designs. With recent versions, you have to insert both line and neutral pins simultaneously for the gates to open. If you try to press a screwdriver or other implement into any single opening individually, the gates won't move.
 

Online IanB

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Re: [YouTube]; American is impressed by sensible British mains plug design
« Reply #44 on: October 22, 2022, 02:20:09 am »
No need to worry about loose or incorrect wiring inside the plug, or broken strain relief.

If you trust the manufacturer. Here in the USA I get highly suspicious of molded plugs on 1500 W appliances that get rather warm when the appliance is running.
 

Offline pcprogrammer

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Re: [YouTube]; American is impressed by sensible British mains plug design
« Reply #45 on: October 22, 2022, 05:17:02 am »
Check out the technology connections youtube channel, he analyses the system to bits.

And I don't recall him showing 'a wire for each socket' - circuits are usually wired as radials, point to point. The star arrangement pcprogrammer points out is fairly unusual but quite logical if you're operating on a circuit-per-room basis.

In lots of Dutch houses and certainly new builds this system is used. But on a worldly scale it probably is not used that much. Don't know how it is done in Germany, but the sockets and switches I used when I renovated the house we had in the Netherlands are Busch Jaeger, a German brand. Good quality.

Here in France it is worse. The star point is the fuse box. You run separate strands for 5 to 8 sockets or light points, depending on the fuse rating. Lots of copper wiring and fuses needed.

Online nfmax

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Re: [YouTube]; American is impressed by sensible British mains plug design
« Reply #46 on: October 22, 2022, 08:00:13 am »
I mean he goes to town an the way the US system works and points out flaws particularly in the US extension cords. Ultimately different places found different ways to solve the same problem.

It's the price we pay for having a system that was developed very early and that largely has retained backward compatibility for more than a century...

So did we in the UK. The BS1363 plug & socket was a replacement, developed as a result of a committee set up in 1942 to consider the electrical aspects of post-war rebuilding. One of its members (and the only safety specialist) was the electrical engineer Caroline Haslett https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caroline_Haslett, noted (among many, many other things) for her activism in promoting the use of electricity in the home to reduce women's workload, and in home safety.

Of course the BS1363 plug is a model of good design - a woman was responsible for it!
 
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Offline py-bb

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Re: [YouTube]; American is impressed by sensible British mains plug design
« Reply #47 on: October 22, 2022, 08:02:52 am »
One of the few things I feel "national pride" over is our (British) plugs.

Like the way the earth pin lifts a cover of the live/neutral wires, making childproofing redundant (there's a website I found once that convincingly argued for the UK plugs at least, they're a liability not a safety measure)


THEORETICALLY you cannot put a plug in upside down (so the earth pin is in and lifts the flaps, thus exposing the contacts) devices are supposed to be so bulky they themselves physically block the L/N pins so the plug cannot be inserted far enough to lift the blocker.

In practice this often is the case, like most strip plugs I see you can put a plug in upside down, exposes the L/N easily (I've seldom used it as an easy way to get at them)
 

Offline Simon

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Re: [YouTube]; American is impressed by sensible British mains plug design
« Reply #48 on: October 22, 2022, 08:20:14 am »
I think the point is that the system is safe when people want to be safe. It's obvious which way the plug goes in, in other countries they have no concept of live and neutral as the plug can be inserted any way around. Yes if you want to override the system you can. I have often up to just the other day plugged a European adapter pack in without an adapter by opening the shutter with a screw driver, but that is my look out as I intentionally override the system and don't do it other than for things only I will access and as a temporary measure.
 

Offline py-bb

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Re: [YouTube]; American is impressed by sensible British mains plug design
« Reply #49 on: October 22, 2022, 02:07:40 pm »
I mean he goes to town an the way the US system works and points out flaws particularly in the US extension cords. Ultimately different places found different ways to solve the same problem.

It's the price we pay for having a system that was developed very early and that largely has retained backward compatibility for more than a century...

So did we in the UK. The BS1363 plug & socket was a replacement, developed as a result of a committee set up in 1942 to consider the electrical aspects of post-war rebuilding. One of its members (and the only safety specialist) was the electrical engineer Caroline Haslett https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caroline_Haslett, noted (among many, many other things) for her activism in promoting the use of electricity in the home to reduce women's workload, and in home safety.

Of course the BS1363 plug is a model of good design - a woman was responsible for it!

A woman was responsible for me and I'm the model of failure.


It is demonstrated your claim is false.
 


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