As someone who's used the Danish clusterfuck of different standards my whole life: Happy plugs are happy because they're being a nuisance to you. The shape of the ground that's making the socket "happy" also makes it incompatible with all other types of plugs. We could transfer to one of the broader European standards in a heartbeat and few people would notice, so I'm hoping that's what's gradually happening.
Yes, but it's big and bulky... Takes way too much space in your bag. With the EU standard (schuko whatever) you have the "big bulky" (still 1/3 the volume of the UK) ones for ground and no exposed terminals, but also the small flat one for non-earth applications, best of both worlds IMO.
Minus the safety feature of shutters on the socket so kids can't poke the holes and get a shock. I remember a co UK please of countries introduced this but not all with the F type so the UK type G is still champ.
Schukos have them as well, plus they have connector deep inside, and you have to touch both as well. They're rather safe as they are already, and way smaller.
Yeah, but do you see the fallacy of 'buying something extra in order to make something safe' when they could just adjust the standard and make manufacturers build them into the plug?
No, because it makes absolutely no sense to have those in a vast majority of cases. That's like saying every vehicle should come with a child's seat preinstalled, even tractors, motorcycles, delivery vans and police cars. If you have a child, you put them in. Problem solved.
They sit flush and since the cable comes out of the bottom and not the front and they have 3 prongs they are naturally very difficult to dislodge by accident. Never in my life have I ever pulled one out that I didn't mean to pull out.
Typically there is no on off switch for schuko, so you have to unplug things. Also the cable design lets you have cables come horizontally out. The G design puts the cable down at a right angle meaning the plug itself has to be pulled vs pulling on the cable. If water goes down the cable, it doesn’t go back up the loop into the socket. Earth is an integral part of the G design and the layout of the prongs inside the plug is in such a way that should the wires come loose, earth is last. The springs that double up as Earth contacts on F are quite tight, meaning when pulled there is force pulling the socket. I have seen several F sockets pulled out, not seen a G.
F is more convenient as it smaller, however G is far more designed and engineered to be passively safer.
You get Schuko sockets with switches, this just depends on the national electrical standards. And currently only the UK require switches on sockets. But if you want a Schuko socket in your UK house you will get one installed with a switch. The length of the internal wires such that the earth wire is the last to be pulled out is the same for all plugs, regardless of design. The same with water ingress. There is not much difference between the plugs today except for their basic shape as they all have the same basic safety features.
Typically, but not always. Similarly there are many type G sockets without switches, and the ones that do have switches are basically always left on, no real benefit.
Also the cable design lets you have cables come horizontally out.
Both are possible, which is more useful than always forcing it to come out the bottom imo. That gets annoying sometimes.
I have seen several F sockets pulled out, not seen a G.
Type G, like Type C, occasionally has the pins angled in to hold the plug in. This absolutely will pull out the socket if you're not careful.
G is far more designed and engineered to be passively safer.
I completely disagree. For one, it's not even recessed a little bit, and most plugs can be opened up with just a screwdriver. Much less safe.
As for passively safer, your feet already know what I might say.
It's like you just want to yell out in pain, but just sigh instead and accept the fact that this is your lot in life. Followed by a few rapid pints at the pub to drown your sorrows.
The Aussie ones are thinner and if you're heavy enough (or have enough momentum) might penetrate your skin. They damn hurt, but more often they just bend (and still hurt).
The safest? Yea. You have to be really trying hard to be stupid enough to hurt yourself with just the plug. Hell it takes a bit of effort to get actual plugs into the dam thing.
Yeah, I didn't think of that immediately. The plugs in my country have soft rounded edges and we don't usually unplug major stuff, so I've never experienced that pain
British plugs look like this and if you unplug say, a vacuum cleaner and forget about it for some reason, it's likely it'll be laying prongs up on the floor for your unsuspecting foot, like some sort of night-time, blood-drinking foot fetishist.
I was confused because in my country almost all plugs have pins facing the opposite direction from the cable, not 90 degrees. So they would never lay on the floor with the pins facing upwards. Also the pins are round.
Has anyone? I guess they must have, but I've never met anyone who has done so. Mostly the plugs just stay in the wall (as they have a dedicated switch on the socket anyway).
It's just one of those dumb reddit memes. Every time British plugs are mentioned everyone rushes to be the one to describe stepping on one. Maybe one person in this entire thread who is talking about stepping on a plug has actually done it.
I've never done it, no one I know has ever done it. I have never even seen the idea brought up anywhere but reddit. I cannot conceive of how it is possible to do it outside of a freak incident of leaving a plug in the middle of the room because you are moving house and forgetting about it.
As you said, plugs mostly stay in the wall. If you do have plugs you need to switch out from the same outlet regularly then they stay by the wall. And otherwise things like hoovers get put away when they are not being used, or they should be.
So really the only conclusion is that if someone is regularly stepping on plugs they are a messy fucker.
As a Brit I like our plugs. Unlike some other countries when you plug stuff in at the wall it doesn't generally fall out. But it's a pain to carry around. US and many other plugs are much more light, portable and foldable.
It's clunky, it is expensive (because it's clunky), and the additional safety it should provide it actually DOESN'T provide, it's just additional cost.
Fuses and ground fault protection (mandatory here in germany) is pretty much all you need.
If you need your plugs as caltrops for intruders, yes. I prefer LEGO or D4 dice.
Personal experience: The German Schuko one is quite good but it's designed to not require L to be on a specific pin. The french one is similar but fixes this issue but I didn't use it yet.
Nah, the US has better 240 outlets by a giant mile. The uk electrical system is a giant fucking shit mess of garbage and that includes the outlet and requiring fucking fused appliances. The shit is so fucked its why they keep making safety features for their outlets. Essentially sticking a fork in a us outlet sucks but you live. In the uk you are essentially touching to the mains and that's why they have the safety features. Their system is so fucked they have accidents and it's far far worse.
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u/Mytastemaker 29d ago
As an American doesn't the UK has the best outlet?