Hacker News Reader

Comment by sandworm101 | Hacker News Reader

Sorry. It's just too big. Electrocutions and fires from plugs are not widespread in the US/Canada. The UK plug is a solution for a dead problem. There is no practical need to continue with plugs bigger than many of the devices they power.

View on HN

We once (edit: still do) had round-pin 15 amp plugs that were even larger.

But then at the same time we had smaller 5 amp plugs with 3 pins and even 2 amp plugs with 2 pins.

Then there were the Bakelite Y adaptors you could pop into lamp sockets in the ceiling to power a radio or similar low current device - they were used in houses that only had light circuits, no ring main. Those houses would have started with DC circuits, and would have had gutta-percha insulation on solid copper in the ceiling voids.

So that many decades ago, you could have 3 different plug standards in one house AND still see the jets and taps for gas lamps!

My point being: we might get away with a smaller plug, but the transition would take a few decades. The full story is below. I'd forgotten about the 30A 3-phase plugs...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AC_power_plugs_and_sockets:_Br...

Uk is 240V 13A which is a bit more powerful that the 110 v Us system.

Looking around my place, I don't see any devices that would care. Short of heat devices like kettles and dryers, everything can be run on 110v/15a. So if voltage is the only reason for keeping those brobdingnagian plugs, that too should be revisited.

240V is not the reason. The continental Europe also has 240V and 16, 10 or 6A. All that with a sane plug size.

Higher voltage should actually make plugs smaller. Higher voltage means that you can deliver the same amount of power with less current. An American appliance which pulls 10A will only need to pull 5A in a European version. Conductor and plug size pretty much doesn't care about voltage, but scales with current drawn.

Voltage dictates size, just not during normal operation. [Don't do this] Turn on a toaster and turn off the lights. Then yank out the toaster's plug, fast, [Don't do this] as if you tripped over the cord. [Don't do this] You'll see a blue flash, two arcs from the plug to the outlet, possibly merging into a single arc between terminals. The last thing anyone needs is such an arc sustaining for more than a nanosecond, or across terminals in the outlet. Higher voltage plugs need larger distances between metal parts to prevent sustained arcs.

This why if you smell gas you shouldn't ever unplug anything.

That's very much a secondary effect at household voltage levels with typical equipment, though. A NEMA 6-15 outlet has no more separation between the blades than a 5-15, for example.

Look at American films and tv no one ever has a proper electric kettle - they use those ones with a whistle you put on the stove just like my gran did 50 years ago.

And if electric cars take off you will want to charge them on a cooker circuit

In the USA, most wall circuits are 120v, 20 amp. Kettles, hair dryers, irons run fine on this, typically 1200-1500 watts each. Clothes dryers, which we are in love with, are a 240v, 30 amp dedicated circuit.

Kettles and hair dryers are typically 1200-1500 watts because that's all they can draw on a typical American circuit. A quick look at these items on amazon.co.uk shows that they have much more powerful stuff. Every British electric kettle I see there draws 3000W, so will boil water in half the time.

>> most wall circuits are 120v, 20 amp.

The circuits yes, but the outlets/plugs are generally 15a. There are many hospital/industrial grade plugs that are 20a non-continuous, but anything that requires a steady 20a will have a strange t-shaped plug you will never see in a residential setting. If you want 20a most go with twistlock plugs, which are standard in the film/tv/live entertainment industry.

20A outlets are all over the place these days. I'd say they're more common than 15A in commercial settings, and they're not uncommon in houses either. My relatively new house has 20A outlets for all the GFI outlets, but 15A for the rest. Not sure why.

Note that circuit and plug capacity is always listed for non-continuous. That typical 20A wall circuit is only rated for 16A continuous, ditto the 20A outlets, and the standard 15A outlets are only good for 12A continuous.

I don't think kettles, hair dryers, or irons count as continuous draws, so this doesn't really matter unless you're plugging in your clothes dryer, oven, or car.

The NEMA 5-20 receptacles are readily available at home improvement stores. To the extent you don't see them in residences, it's because the electricians were cheap. There's scant other reason to not use them on say a dedicated 20A bathroom circuit.

> Uk is 240V 13A which is a bit more powerful that the 110 v Us system.

Actually UK is 230V and North America is 120V.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mains_electricity_by_country

UK is nominally 230V to standardise with the rest of Europe but actually 240V as it always was:

"Following voltage harmonisation, electricity supplies within the European Union are now nominally 230 V ±10% at 50 Hz.[6] For a transition period (1995–2008), countries that had previously used 220 V changed to a narrower asymmetric tolerance range of 230 V +6%/−10% and those (like the UK) that had previously used 240 V changed to 230 V +10%/−6%.[7] No change in voltage is required by either system as both 220 V and 240 V fall within the lower 230 V tolerance bands (230 V ±10%)."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mains_electricity#Standardisat...

I don't know if 240V is actually being phased out now it's post-2008 but the mains of everywhere I've lived since 2008 has definitely still been 240V.

Survivor bias.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com