Man dies charging phone in the bath ...

[Ampera]

Fastest solution to fix US problems (most of them) would be to do it like in almost every EU country recess sockets by 1 cm and everyone is safe and happy (applies to 3 pin sockets only, 2pin ones in US are just to loose like the ones in the red light district  ) and also ban 2 pin crap...

Not sure if you know what you're talking about, but our plugs aren't designed for a recess as they are NOT all the same size. Immediately all wall wart AC/DC converters will not fit anymore. Not to mention a change of this magnitude would be expensive. Any change in the US would be like asking over half of the European Union to change the standard.

The thing about the US plugs is they actually need the large contact area due to the high current and low voltage.

I've had an idea for a plug that is three rings each inside each other, with the middle ring being live, the next larger ring being neutral, and the largest ring being ground. This would allow for a VERY compact plug, it could be made out of sheet metal instead of other standards which require die pressing or other manufacturing standards. It could be designed with a twist lock connector that would turn on the power when locked, and only when locked. This means that you don't need to shutter or sleeve the outlets and plugs respectively, as it would require the plug to be fully inserted and twisted in order for power to be applied.

This would eliminate almost any and all problems with current standards

It would eliminate the bulk of the UK standard.

It would be polarized unlike the CEE standard

It would be better in every single way shape and respect to the NEMA standard.

I should probably make a good drawing of this, and I have posted this idea to the forum before.

The first thing I thought of when reading your description was powerCON...
http://www.neutrik.com/en/audio/powercon/

That's not TOO far off. Maybe I can just rough napkin draw it, lemme get back to you.

[Ampera]

I've done a tad bit more than a napkin drawing and made a real quick 3D model using Roblox (Not the best 3D modeling tool, but it's the only one I know how to use)

I've exported it to OBJ, here it is.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/8awcejv99jgiuql/obj.zip?dl=1 (Direct link)

Some pictures if you, like me, can't figure out what the hell to do with a 3D model:

http://prntscr.com/em2f03
http://prntscr.com/em2f26
http://prntscr.com/em2f4o

In order from smallest ring to largest ring, there is Live (In the direct center), Neutral (In the second largest ring), and Ground (The largest ring)

There is a plastic bump on the top that is supposed to insert into a notch in the socket, and when turned it would hit a microswitch and turn on the power. Two or more bumps/notches could be added for better locking and stability.

This way, the outlet wouldn't need a shutter, and the plug wouldn't need a sleeve. The power is off until the specially shaped notch is turned and hits a specially shaped microswitch in the socket. So you can stick whatever you want in the outlet, and won't get zapped.

The model isn't to scale by any means. I haven't done any real world measurements or anything, it's just to illustrate the concept.

[mtdoc]

Tragic story, yes. But it could be worse. He could have been found in the bath with a mains wired breadboad on his chest and a Ben Heck video playing on the tele...

[station240]

This is another article on the subject. Its still not clear exactly what happened though.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4322932/Man-32-dies-charging-iPhone-bath.html

Key paragraphs:

, but the cable wasn't near the bath, it had been run there to charge a mobile phone.

'The extension cable was on the floor and it appeared as though he had his phone charger on his chest and the part between the phone charger and the cable had made contact with the water.'

Crappy writing style makes this less clear than it should, allow me to fix.

The extension cable was run across the floor and it appeared as though he had his phone charger on his chest and the join between the phone charger and the cable had made contact with the water.

[Rick Law]

Its always worth remembering the rest of the world does NOT have the standards for electrical safety we expect in 1st World countries, and the standards they do have are often only enforced if someone important gets killed.   You don't need to go further afield than the average UK or US package holiday to find potentially lethal wiring if you stray from the resort hotels that have been checked by the tour operators.
...
...

Even inside the USA, not all codes are followed at all places.  Remember the Ghost Ship (warehouse) fire in Oakland, CA (Dec 2016).  36 died.  The whole place with multiple floors of "residential areas" were powered by extension cords some originated from outside the building.

Some area in the USA, you have wires stringing overhead across streets totally illegally - but you can see they surely are in used to power kind-of homes.

There is a balance between the risk and the cost of avoiding the risk.  When the cost of avoiding risk (implementing according to safety code) is too high, more and more will just ignore the code.  Ghost Ship would not have existed if the cost of building an apartment is lower.

Most safety codes will add cost.  Ghost ship was not a condemned building, but in Detroit MI and many other big cities, people are known to be living in condemned buildings.  May be a less-safe but less costly set of regulations would end up saving more lives.  Hard to say.

[CatalinaWOW]

I've done a tad bit more than a napkin drawing and made a real quick 3D model using Roblox (Not the best 3D modeling tool, but it's the only one I know how to use)

I've exported it to OBJ, here it is.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/8awcejv99jgiuql/obj.zip?dl=1 (Direct link)

Some pictures if you, like me, can't figure out what the hell to do with a 3D model:

http://prntscr.com/em2f03
http://prntscr.com/em2f26
http://prntscr.com/em2f4o

In order from smallest ring to largest ring, there is Live (In the direct center), Neutral (In the second largest ring), and Ground (The largest ring)

There is a plastic bump on the top that is supposed to insert into a notch in the socket, and when turned it would hit a microswitch and turn on the power. Two or more bumps/notches could be added for better locking and stability.

This way, the outlet wouldn't need a shutter, and the plug wouldn't need a sleeve. The power is off until the specially shaped notch is turned and hits a specially shaped microswitch in the socket. So you can stick whatever you want in the outlet, and won't get zapped.

The model isn't to scale by any means. I haven't done any real world measurements or anything, it's just to illustrate the concept.

This adds a layer of safety, at the cost of redoing the world with a more complex design.  And you still could argue that a shutter would make it still safer because the microswitch could conceivably fail closed. 

While this thread is about someone who died in something that was probably related to standard power plugs, the existing designs, both US and European are obviously not terribly unsafe.  The death rates are low.  Even anecdotally related accidents with metal objects falling across improperly exposed pins didn't have lethal or even serious results.  No argument that it couldn't have been worse, but the reality is that it wasn't, and isn't very often.

Perhaps the existing designs are good enough.

[james_s]

This adds a layer of safety, at the cost of redoing the world with a more complex design.  And you still could argue that a shutter would make it still safer because the microswitch could conceivably fail closed. 

While this thread is about someone who died in something that was probably related to standard power plugs, the existing designs, both US and European are obviously not terribly unsafe.  The death rates are low.  Even anecdotally related accidents with metal objects falling across improperly exposed pins didn't have lethal or even serious results.  No argument that it couldn't have been worse, but the reality is that it wasn't, and isn't very often.

Perhaps the existing designs are good enough.

My thoughts exactly. This seems like a very over-engineered design, a complex solution looking for a problem. While the US style plugs are probably some of the least safe in the developed world, it's not as though people are constantly electrocuting themselves just trying to plug stuff in. Most electrocutions are caused by people doing stupid things, case in point the incident that started the thread. Try to make something idiot proof and someone will find a better idiot. I don't even like the tamper resistant receptacles they require now for domestic use, they're expensive and only available in the crappy builder grade. It's difficult to get some plugs into them and even harder to probe with a multimeter or circuit tester. I can only imagine what a mechanically complex receptacle containing multiple microswitches would cost, not to mention the cost of adapters that would be needed for the decades long transition. I mean there are still millions of houses out there with ungrounded 2-prong receptacles and those have not been used in new construction in ~50 years.

[noidea]

That definitely qualifies for a Darwin award.

I did find that odd when I visited the UK, no electrical outlets or switches anywhere in bathrooms, the only thing they did have was an isolated 110V shaver socket. Here in the US I don't think I've ever seen a bathroom that didn't have an outlet in it and most of the time the light switch is inside the bathroom too. Houses from the 1950s often have the bathroom light switch outside the door, something that amused me when I was about 4 years old turning the light off while someone was in there.

Getting slightly OT but I lived there in the 90's and could never quite get over the paranoia about not having power outlets in the bathroom and a cord pull switch for the light, but you could quite happily have a 240VAC mains powered instant shower in the shower cubicle 
I thought they were the deathtraps......

[grumpydoc]

Tragic story, yes. But it could be worse. He could have been found in the bath with a mains wired breadboad on his chest and a Ben Heck video playing on the tele...

[donotdespisethesnake]

'The extension cable was on the floor and it appeared as though he had his phone charger on his chest and the part between the phone charger and the cable had made contact with the water.'

Crappy writing style makes this less clear than it should, allow me to fix.

The extension cable was run across the floor and it appeared as though he had his phone charger on his chest and the join between the phone charger and the cable had made contact with the water.

The media reports are somewhat fuzzy, but if the charger was on his chest, then a mains socket was on his chest. Maybe something like this:


If so, that would be insane. I guess there is a possibility that he had it balanced on the side of the bath, and it fell on him. Still quite an insane thing to do.

[tszaboo]

He could not live without his phone for 5 minutes, and took chances playing with the grim reaper.
I'm just gonna leave this here:

[Ian.M]

The media reports are somewhat fuzzy, but if the charger was on his chest, then a mains socket was on his chest.

Not necessarily.  Although the UK tabloid press is not known for their accuracy, in this case they may actually be reporting the facts.   It is possible the extension lead socket was near but not in the bath.  Many Apple chargers have a plug adapter for localisation, that connects to the main part of the charger via an IEC60320 C8 socket. A standard IEC60320 C7 (figure '8') mains lead will fit if the Apple plug adapter is removed.

@NANDBlog,
The consensus on the Snopes forum seems to be that the infamous pool + flipflops + extension lead photo was faked. http://message.snopes.com/showthread.php?t=24858

[CCitizenTO]

Interesting would not think a 5vdc source would cause death, wonder if this only applies to cheap Chinese adapters that have no isolation.

According to the story the man rested a 240 V mains extension cable on his chest and then submerged it in the water. Nothing close to 5 V DC.

(It should be noted that he would have had to use a long extension cable to do this as UK electrical regulations do not permit mains sockets anywhere near a bathtub.)

Oh yikes, I thought they meant the phone charger cable not the 240v one.  Yeah that would pack a nice punch. 

I'm going to assume Electrical Code is similar across North America since I'm from Canada... If you put an electrical socket anywhere within 3 feet of a water source it has to be a GFCI (Ground-Fault Circuit Interrupter) which has some sort of circuitry to detect if something has fallen into the water and kill the power presumably before it kills the person in question, this includes outlets outside the home as well as they get exposed to rain and such and have to go in their own special boxes to protect them. The GFCI outlets are also much more expensive like a regular outlet is (On par with an order of magnitude lol... $2-5 for a normal outlet and like $25-40 for a GFCI outlet). Anyways they'll look like this they have a test and reset switch right on them...

[helius]

The posters on the Snopes message board don't appear to have electrical engineering knowledge to any greater degree than the muppets on the Craigslist message boards. It's not a truly reliable source of information, like, say, the Straight Dope.

As for GFCI sockets, they do not "detect if something has fallen in the water" and that is not their purpose. You can chop off a cordset, dangle it in the water, and plug it in to a GFCI and nothing will trigger it, unless the water has dissolved electrolytes.

As a qualifier to the above, the US type of GFCI can be triggered by dipping bare wires into a bathtub with a (grounded) metal drain. The wires need to be stripped so as to expose a fairly large area to the water; a chopped-off cord shows no response.

[Ian.M]

The posters on the Snopes message board don't appear to have electrical engineering knowledge to any greater degree than the muppets on the Craigslist message boards. It's not a truly reliable source of information, like, say, the Straight Dope.

The combination of a set of photos showing the infamous pool + flipflops + extension lead being set up (you have to script a set of URLs for the photos as the directory listing is denied) + the distance from any of the buildings where the red lead could possibly be connected + the fact that the participants appear to be the teardown team after an IT event at the Northwood-LAN Frag Arena, and appear to be the right age range to be uni students, put the probability of fakery at 99.99%

As for GFCI sockets, they do not "detect if something has fallen in the water" and that is not their purpose. You can chop off a cordset, dangle it in the water, and plug it in to a GFCI and nothing will trigger it, unless the water has dissolved electrolytes.

As a qualifier to the above, the US type of GFCI can be triggered by dipping bare wires into a bathtub with a (grounded) metal drain. The wires need to be stripped so as to expose a fairly large area to the water; a chopped-off cord shows no response.

For GFCI a.k.a. RCD devices its all about current imbalance between live and neutral or for 240V US ones between L1, L2 and N considered as a set.  European ones typically have  trip current ratings of 10mA or 30mA, and the US seems to be fond of 5mA ones.  Typically they will trip somewhere between 50% of the required current and the actual rating, so if your water conductivity, path length and exposed conductor area is low enough to keep the current under lets say 2mA, you can pass that current to ground all day without tripping.

[CatalinaWOW]

The posters on the Snopes message board don't appear to have electrical engineering knowledge to any greater degree than the muppets on the Craigslist message boards. It's not a truly reliable source of information, like, say, the Straight Dope.

The combination of a set of photos showing the infamous pool + flipflops + extension lead being set up (you have to script a set of URLs for the photos as the directory listing is denied) + the distance from any of the buildings where the red lead could possibly be connected + the fact that the participants appear to be the teardown team after an IT event at the Northwood-LAN Frag Arena, and appear to be the right age range to be uni students, put the probability of fakery at 99.99%

I would say you are a little low on your estimate of fakery.  Look at the wires where they go over the edge of the pool.  Looks like the two cords are taped together, not plugged into each other.  Adds a level of safety to the end of the cord not shown in the picture not being plugged in.  Protects against someone not involved in the joke helping out by plugging it in for them.  Add that to the fact that there is no evidence of indicator lights on the radio or the power strips.

That said, I have lived in several parts of the country where people live out their lives emulating the "red neck" stereotype.  I have seen things not too dissimilar to this in real life, propelled by the weekend case of beer , and everyone I was aware of survived.  Fools apparently have guardian angels who protect them on a regular basis.

[Cubdriver]

This adds a layer of safety, at the cost of redoing the world with a more complex design.  And you still could argue that a shutter would make it still safer because the microswitch could conceivably fail closed. 

While this thread is about someone who died in something that was probably related to standard power plugs, the existing designs, both US and European are obviously not terribly unsafe.  The death rates are low.  Even anecdotally related accidents with metal objects falling across improperly exposed pins didn't have lethal or even serious results.  No argument that it couldn't have been worse, but the reality is that it wasn't, and isn't very often.

Perhaps the existing designs are good enough.

My thoughts exactly. This seems like a very over-engineered design, a complex solution looking for a problem. While the US style plugs are probably some of the least safe in the developed world, it's not as though people are constantly electrocuting themselves just trying to plug stuff in. Most electrocutions are caused by people doing stupid things, case in point the incident that started the thread. Try to make something idiot proof and someone will find a better idiot. I don't even like the tamper resistant receptacles they require now for domestic use, they're expensive and only available in the crappy builder grade. It's difficult to get some plugs into them and even harder to probe with a multimeter or circuit tester. I can only imagine what a mechanically complex receptacle containing multiple microswitches would cost, not to mention the cost of adapters that would be needed for the decades long transition. I mean there are still millions of houses out there with ungrounded 2-prong receptacles and those have not been used in new construction in ~50 years.

Agree wholeheartedly.  Most electrical incidents can be avoided with the exercise of a small amount of care and common sense.  The suggested solution, while it may be effective in preventing inadvertent contact with mains voltage at plugs and receptacles, would be extremely expensive and take a very long time to implement and add considerably to the complexity of the receptacles with the associated increased potential for mechanical failure thereof.  If people were being electrocuted left and right by the mains connectors used in the US, then something along these lines might be justified.  Since that is not presently the case, it would instead be a huge added expense for, for all intents and purposes given the limited number of fatalities with the current system, barely any return.

-Pat

[Monkeh]

If people were being electrocuted left and right by the mains connectors used in the US, then something along these lines might be justified.  Since that is not presently the case

Very quickly acquired numbers:
Electrically-related workplace deaths in the USA, 2010: 160 (I excluded the lightning deaths, there were three.)
Electrically-related workplace deaths in the UK, 2010: 6.

That's about three times higher per capita. Seems to me there's substantial room for improvement.

[Cubdriver]

If people were being electrocuted left and right by the mains connectors used in the US, then something along these lines might be justified.  Since that is not presently the case

Very quickly acquired numbers:
Electrically-related workplace deaths in the USA, 2010: 160 (I excluded the lightning deaths, there were three.)
Electrically-related workplace deaths in the UK, 2010: 6.

That's about three times higher per capita. Seems to me there's substantial room for improvement.

Well, that depends - were they all electrocuted by touching mains plugs, or were they perhaps electricians working on wiring?  If the latter, then the mains plug design has nothing to do with it.

-Pat

[grumpydoc]

If people were being electrocuted left and right by the mains connectors used in the US, then something along these lines might be justified.  Since that is not presently the case

Very quickly acquired numbers:
Electrically-related workplace deaths in the USA, 2010: 160 (I excluded the lightning deaths, there were three.)
Electrically-related workplace deaths in the UK, 2010: 6.

That's about three times higher per capita. Seems to me there's substantial room for improvement.

I'm not sure that workplace deaths is a good comparator because the health and safety elves will have more influence there which might mitigate unreliable design in the socket itself. H&S might also (possibly) have more influence in the UK than in the US.

This is 2010 data
http://www.electricalsafetyfirst.org.uk/what-we-do/policies-and-research/statistics/

But shows that there were 22 domestic deaths to 6 workplace deaths. Hard to say whether the home is more dangerous than the workplace per "person hour at risk" (or whatever, I just invented that) but it is a bigger number.

The more interesting figure is the number of non-fatal shocks which is reckoned to be 2.5 millionwith 350k serious injuries - I'd hazard the suggestion that finding comparable numbers for the 'states would be more illuminating.

[Monkeh]

If people were being electrocuted left and right by the mains connectors used in the US, then something along these lines might be justified.  Since that is not presently the case

Very quickly acquired numbers:
Electrically-related workplace deaths in the USA, 2010: 160 (I excluded the lightning deaths, there were three.)
Electrically-related workplace deaths in the UK, 2010: 6.

That's about three times higher per capita. Seems to me there's substantial room for improvement.

I'm not sure that workplace deaths is a good comparator because the health and safety elves will have more influence there which might mitigate unreliable design in the socket itself. H&S might also (possibly) have more influence in the UK than in the US.

It was just the first set of numbers I found.

The more interesting figure is the number of non-fatal shocks which is reckoned to be 2.5 millionwith 350k serious injuries - I'd hazard the suggestion that finding comparable numbers for the 'states would be more illuminating.

Non-fatal data is harder to come by and difficult to compare, as there's no requirement to record such data - deaths go down on a coroners report, not so much burnt fingers.

[tszaboo]

If people were being electrocuted left and right by the mains connectors used in the US, then something along these lines might be justified.  Since that is not presently the case

Very quickly acquired numbers:
Electrically-related workplace deaths in the USA, 2010: 160 (I excluded the lightning deaths, there were three.)
Electrically-related workplace deaths in the UK, 2010: 6.

That's about three times higher per capita. Seems to me there's substantial room for improvement.

I think it has to do everything with the plugs used in the USA. The first time I saw it in action, my reaction was this: The wiring code, the low voltage, the lack of grounding in too many equipment and plug... they all lead to problems like this. The strange thing, people go crazy when there is a plane accident in a decade, and let this ignorance kill many more people.
But you know, dont listen to the rest of the world, because, everything which is not a V8 4L car is a communist car.

[SeanB]

V8 4l is a little engine, you want at least 5.6l to have real power. If it gets more than 5MPG then it is eco friendly.

[james_s]

I think it has to do everything with the plugs used in the USA. The first time I saw it in action, my reaction was this: The wiring code, the low voltage, the lack of grounding in too many equipment and plug... they all lead to problems like this. The strange thing, people go crazy when there is a plane accident in a decade, and let this ignorance kill many more people.
But you know, dont listen to the rest of the world, because, everything which is not a V8 4L car is a communist car.

That's an artifact of the way the human brain is wired. We have a natural tendency to tune out frequent things and focus greatly on unusual occurrences, at one point in time it likely had some evolutionary advantage. It's the same reason people fear shark attacks and school shootings while thinking nothing of getting into a 4,000 lb machine and getting on the highway after a few drinks or juggling their phone and a cheeseburger while driving.

The lack of grounding is a historical thing that has been going away but changes like this don't happen overnight. I really don't see the plugs as being a big issue, hundreds of millions of people use them every day and I've never known anyone who knew anyone who was electrocuted plugging in or unplugging something. I don't think I've ever even been shocked by handling a plug, I have been shocked a number of times but it was always doing something stupid, poking around inside live equipment, working on the wiring without shutting off the circuit, the typical "do as I say, not as I do" stuff that many of us here are likely guilty of.

[grumpydoc]

It was just the first set of numbers I found.

I appreciate that

The more interesting figure is the number of non-fatal shocks which is reckoned to be 2.5 millionwith 350k serious injuries - I'd hazard the suggestion that finding comparable numbers for the 'states would be more illuminating.

Non-fatal data is harder to come by and difficult to compare, as there's no requirement to record such data - deaths go down on a coroners report, not so much burnt fingers.

Nod, now that I think about it I wonder where "Electrical Safety First" got their data from - after all most people who suffer a non-fatal shock would just utter a few choice words and move on, not report it. I imagine it would not be beyond possibility that an electrical safety organisation might want to over-report the problem. 

The 350k could come from healthcare attendances though so might be more reliable.

I still think that looking at workplace fatalities is not that great a comparator. The number is small so going to be heavily affected by chance fluctuations and as I said one would hope that the workplace was actually "safer" than the home because safety of the workforce is supposed to be an employer's duty. Also, as Cubdriver pointed out there are likely to be more incidents related to installation or maintenance of electrical systems which would not say anything about the relative merits of the plug & socket.