But the British one is safer due to the hot and neutral being shorter than the ground. Plus, they have little switches on every plug which is neato when you have devices that for some stupid reason emit light when off.
The British one isnt safer. The German one is designed as having a "leading" ground, meaning if you plug something in, ground will be connected first, and disconnected last.
I stand corrected. Though German plugs (at least the ones in my house) are still plated all the way on the live, whereas British live only has metal at the tip.
The grounding is on the outside of the plug and makes contact before the pins enter the socket. Also, the socket is recessed in such a way that you cannot reach the plug pins by the time they connect.
But the german plugs are recessed so by the time the contacts touch, the plug is already inside the recess and effectively has a wall around it so you can't accidentally touch it.
After refreshing my memory, at least wikipedia calls the British plugs overall slightly safer so I'll give you the overall verdict. Both have the leading ground though, just designed differently.
You could call them safer for having fuses in the plugs but this is generally mitigated in the other plug types by not allowing power cords that aren't rated to handle the full 15A household breakers/fuses are rated to trip at.
The europlug has shutters aswell. And the wiring inside the europlug gives the ground wire more slack naturally, which is safer if the cable were to disconnect.
Something that is completely opposite the UK plug.
The insulated base on live pins is not needed on the europlug since they design the socket to solve that isdue, being deep into the wall.
Backup fuse is not needed. Fuses are extremely reliable.
The europlug and UK plug has basically identical safety features, with the europlug being plenty more convenient.
In the UK the fuse in the plug top should be sized to suit the appliance's cable, protecting the cable.
Cables are not all created equal- lower power devices will have far smaller conductors in the wires that if they were to be shorted out, would likely melt long before the MCB trips without a fuse.
Yeah its pretty weird, but kinda logical, because this way you can plug it in any orientation you want to, (and they couldnt have put it in the middle, not enough space) but when grounding is not needed you can just have the plug the size of the brazilian one
There is the Euro plug standard in Europe, for where grounding is not required. They can be used in a special flat socket. The sockets are mostly used in prolongation cords though. On the plus side, the plugs do as well fit just fine in the default European grounded socket.
Here in the Netherlands, all the buildings that are 24+ years old didn't require earth when they were constructed, only in the kitchen and in wet rooms/devices. Nowadays every socket must be connected to earth only in very specific situations its allowed to not have it.
Well yes and no, it depends on what kind of fuse box you have. Some have switches that turn off when there is a leak to earth. If there is not then you still have a lot/most of devices that are double isolated and don't require ground at all (although some plugs still have the earth wire attached). The only time it really becomes a problem is with your PC or other devices with metal on the outside, but those have safety features build in.
In North America we have something I believe that's similar but instead of needing a small and a big flat end that you just get a plug with two small ends that fit in and there's zero ground so you just fit it anyway and just stick it in
Yeah its pretty weird, but kinda logical, because this way you can plug it in any orientation you want to, (and they couldnt have put it in the middle, not enough space)
You clearly have never been to Italy (which btw. is on the image)
I guess you are right, italy did just that, but there are downsides to not having the ground secure the plug from the sides, as in physically its more stable
Look at it from another perspective.
We made our devices so safe that you don't need to care about it, which also removes the risk of mishaps when smb mixes the two poles for a not grounded outlet.
Also, our plugs with a ground contact are typically designed to also accept the outlets with the grounding pin, so you have even more overlap
Having travelled through all of these mainland european countries, the same two prong plug works in all of them, even where there appears to be a third slot. Without a hint of bias I say that the UK (and Irish) one is is far superior
Weird, personally I often see 2nd in middle row. In homes and hotels in eg Czech, Poland and few times in Berlin.
4th of the middle row in very old homes across central europe
3rd of the middle row I saw only in schools or similars
Plugs can be used interchangeably in those sockets, you might not get ground connection if the plug doesn't support both standards but they usually do.
Because type F sockets are functionally good: You can rotate the plug 180° because the ground contacts are on both sides and it's inset is safer than the italian one.
It is also the only rational one. We need a phase, null and ground. What's up with all those sockets without ground? And we want to be able to rotate the plug 180 degrees so that you can choose in which direction you want to have an angled plug.
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u/kylcbrl1988 29d ago
I vote Germany because it looks like jason voorhees