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[YouTube]: American is impressed by sensible British mains plug design

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pcprogrammer:

--- Quote from: Monkeh on October 21, 2022, 09:03:57 pm ---
--- Quote from: Simon on October 21, 2022, 08:49:03 pm ---Check out the technology connections youtube channel, he analyses the system to bits.

--- End quote ---

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.

--- End quote ---

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.

nfmax:

--- Quote from: james_s on October 22, 2022, 02:02:26 am ---
--- Quote from: Simon on October 21, 2022, 09:23:32 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.

--- End quote ---

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...

--- End quote ---

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!

py-bb:
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)

Simon:
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.

py-bb:

--- Quote from: nfmax on October 22, 2022, 08:00:13 am ---
--- Quote from: james_s on October 22, 2022, 02:02:26 am ---
--- Quote from: Simon on October 21, 2022, 09:23:32 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.

--- End quote ---

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...

--- End quote ---

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!

--- End quote ---

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


It is demonstrated your claim is false.

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