Power plug and socket (outlet) types | Hacker News Reader

Power plug and socket (outlet) types

world-power-plugs.com

24 pointsAmorymeltzer53 comments

The original article is somewhat wrong or at least misleading regarding the compatibility of Type F (Schuko, German) plugs with Type E (French) sockets: "Type [...] F plugs will also fit in type E sockets". Actually, they won't. Type E has a protruding earth prong that sticks out from the socket. To fit, the plug needs a corresponding Opening. Type F has no such opening, so you cannot physically connect.

Also, French Type E has a round outline which won't fit into Type F sockets because of the non-round outline of Type F: There is a notch on the left and right side of the circle, making them incompatible, but the original article doesn't show that, the drawing of type F is simply wrong.

The plug that actually fits (and is common with most new appliances) is CEE 7/7, a hybrid of types E and F: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CEE_7_standard_AC_plugs_and_so...

All in all, the original article is a bad overview and you shouldn't rely on it, because it will be trouble at least in Type-E/F-land. If this is an indication of the overall data quality, avoid using this page for anything.

Other than multiplugs I haven’t seen plugs that don’t confirm to CEE 7/7 in a long time.

> The plug that actually fits (and is common with most new appliances) is CEE 7/7

It's not just "common with new appliances", it's essentially universal.

I honestly can not remember ever seeing an actual Type E or Type F plug in the wild, only sockets.

What's "the original" article? You mean the website that's referenced in this post?

Yes.

Isn't this just the Mains Electricity by county page [1] on Wikipedia, with a filter option form slapped on top of it?

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mains_electricity_by_country

I think this is just a simple ad-/clickfarming page without any actually useful content.

The content that is there is also wrong and misleading.

Every time I read about plugs, I remember Tom Scott's video about why British plugs are the best: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UEfP1OKKz_Q

I also remembered that video. But, as a non plug expert, I've always been curious how much of what he describes is really good engineering and how much is, erm, plug patriottism (?). Are there any stats or studies that back up his safety claims?

I found this thread on StackExchange [1] with an extremely thorough answer. Basically, the numbers don't differ that much. Also, different electrical systems having additional features like GFCI's make it hard to compare.

[1] https://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/22572/are-briti...

The separate fuse-in-the-plug is a useful safety feature for lower powered items, as they can have a lower rated fuse (e.g. 3A) and thus blow before tripping any other fuses.

This was an excellent read, thoroughly enjoyable!

Here is another where I learnt about the awesomeness of UK's plugs - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=139Q61ty4C0

Good video but I take issue with one item raised on there:

> having a switch on the outlet makes it harder to debug if the bulb has blown…

No it doesn’t. It really doesn’t.

The other drawbacks have merit (though in 40 years of using electrical appliances I’ve never once had to worry about load balancing, but I’m willing to entertain that might be an issue for some people under niche circumstances). But the whole “a switch makes it harder to debug” argument is a really weak point.

Well, you also have one fuse in the plug and one fuse in the socket. Then you have uncertainty about whether the plug is fully plugged in. The whole system is finicky.

And god help you if you step on a plug, because they always rest teeth up.

I spent 15 years in the UK, and despite the fact that I take good care of my stuff, I've never had so much trouble with electrical stuff.

Sockets don’t have fuses. Only the plug. Sockets have switches but those are manually tripped and clearly visible when on or off. The fuses in the plugs only blow under exceptional circumstances too. The whole thing is really low maintenance in my experience (I’ve had more issues with US plugs so weird you experienced the reverse).

My biggest complaint about U.K. plugs is that they’re not more universal. This leads to some international goods having really shitty adapters to slot their proprietary plug into a U.K. plug. Some of which are so bad that they completely undo all of the safety mechanisms built into the U.K. plug.

As for the complaint about stepping on a plug, I’ve done that maybe once in my entire life time. Frankly if you can’t be bothered to tidy up your electrical cables then it’s really your own fault and not the flaw in the design of the plug.

I've used UK sockets with fuses. Even changed the fuse in some of them.

It sounds like you were using some pretty non-standard sockets then. Maybe that was your issue.

UK sockets are fused (in the general case) - only the circuits and plugs are.

Also, of all the standards, it seems to me that UK plugs are the easiest to be sure are fully plugged in?

In practice, UK plugs will glitch out if they are not asbolutely, positively all the way in. We're talking sub-mm precision here.

I’ve never experienced that and I have kids who are constantly tugging on plugs.

This is wildly different to my experience. UK plugs are most stable I've ever used (at least residentially).

They are all last century trash as inserted has a straight edge allowing a short & GFCI is a no true scotsman.

Care to elaborate? I don't understand what you mean, nor can I even guess.

A, B, C, F, H, I, K, & L short with a straight conductor as shown on top (dropped). A, C, D, E, F, G, J, L, M, N & O from below. A relative larger ground prong in the middle in a linear config would be a minor fix keeping the bare terminals, but still leaves open the issue of the terminals getting wrapped in a conductor (i.e. wet hair).

I do not get how you claim a type F or G or L can be shorted.

The CEE 7/7 (E & F hybrid) can not be shorted due to socket design. The Europlug, the British plug, the Italian plug and a few others can not be shorted because the prongs are covered in plastic.

Thin Plastic/insulator may wear faster than metal - not that it should not also be used. Again socket design is a no true scotsman - recessing the socket (https://www.legrand.com/ecatalogue/media/catalog/product/cac...) could be claimed to fix the issue for all of them, but that does not disallow flat sockets or male to male. An alternative is to have the ground shaped as the circular conductor acting as the (plastic) insulator surrounding one or both terminals.

The socket in your example is Type F, Schuko. Those are only available in recessed form, any flat variants are strictly verboten, nonconforming, etc.

It is actually another problem of the original article: It doesn't show and distinguish between recessed sockets and sockets that are available/allowed to be used in a flat form.

The recess also makes the mechanical mating far more robust and takes away mechanical wear from the prongs. So in contrast to flat designs like the British, where all the force rests on the (admittedly thicker) prongs, Type F avoids that problem by distributing most of the forces into the socket housing. Of course you need to replace that if cracked, but you avoid the danger of cracks in the prongs. Cracked or bent prongs are really a fire danger because if they don't immediately fall of (which is the good case), they might continue to be used, albeit with increased electrical resistance due to the crack. Resistance leads to overheating, overheating leads to fires. And no RCCB/SRCD or OCB will help you there. An AFDD might (if there is an arc, which might be 50% of cases), but nobody has those because they are fairly new, very expensive and only code-required in some special types of buildings (care facilities, hospitals and such).

And for any of the socket types that have the same distance between prongs, Shuko plugs do not fit because the prongs are thicker.

That is why the Europlug has insulated prongs. It fits where Shuko doesn't.

You actually can not even build a non-recesed Shuko (grounded) socket, because the earth contacts are part of the housing.

Right, exactly. And non-grounded Schuko Sockets are forbidden, at least in Germany (Europlug sockets are allowed if they only accept Europlugs, see the ones on the left side here: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Datei:Euro-socket.jpg . No idea what the standard might be for those.)

Also, do not build male to male suicide cables. If you have a generator, install a proper input for the generator that disconnects the house from the grid when in use. These have a different connector.

Besides, none of what you propose will save someone who builds a male to male cable. Darwin awards have to be awarded.

G prevents this. From its page here: https://www.worldstandards.eu/electricity/plugs-and-sockets/...

“The 9-mm long insulated sleeves prevent accidental contact with a bare connector while the plug is partially inserted.”

Do you mean that these plugs can be dropped onto some conducting material and cause a short? That's technically true but no sane electrical safety standard allows prongs on a plug to carry lethal current when exposed. It's required by European norms and doublessly most or all others around the world for devices, including plugs, for there to be no way barring multiple failures to the device for the user to receive a lethal shock from exposed terminals.

What the heck does "GFCI is a no true scotsman" mean? That the Scottish don't need no stinkin' GFCI?

(You repeat "is no true scotsman" in a reply, so it's not just a typo...)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_true_Scotsman - in this case changing the safety claim from the case of an electrically live cord & its prongs to include the cord & some safety design on/of the receptacle.

The Type I (AU/NZ) plug is different to the Type I (China) plug. For one thing, the Chinese one is upside down (or maybe the AU one is?) but the biggest difference is the AU standard requires the active and neutral conductors to have insulation over half of the conductor (presumably to prevent a kid with a butter knife or paper-clip touching the hot conductor on a half-inserted plug). The Chinese one has no such protection (also, generally seem to have holes on the pins). So while they may be inter-operable, they're not necessarily legal or safe (for example, the Argentinian Type I apparently swaps active and neutral). In the same way that a Euro (Type E) plug can fit in a UK (Type G) socket if you can push Earth door open (useful not just for travelling Europe, but also Asia, where Indonesia uses E, but Malaysia uses G. But you really shouldn't do that).

I'm curious why American Samoa uses Type I (among 3 others) but on 60Hz/110V...

Also, some of the voltages are wrong; AU is listed as 230V, but the situation varies between states, and between nominal and actual.

In short; Wikipedia has more detail and accuracy.

> presumably to prevent a kid with a butter knife or paper-clip touching the hot conductor on a half-inserted plug

Correct! That said, I don’t know how regulated it is since I have quite a few IEC cables without that insulation.

Having just read about this a bit more, it looks like it is also to prevent something falling onto a half-inserted plug and causing *sparks*. China's "upside-down" version is also a solution to this, in that something falling would fall onto the earth pin first. Not sure how that works for two-pin plugs.

The standard was changed around 20 years ago to require the insulation. Before that, it wasn't required. Those IEC cables are probably just older than that.

A couple of other things they also did away with are non-moulded plugs supplied with appliances new, and piggy-back plugs.

Piggy-back is OK (you can still buy piggy-back extension leads), except for the case of a DIY piggy-back plug - this runs the risk of someone wiring two of them together, or a piggy-back plug to a male plug, resulting in danger.

I will leave this here, as I assumed from the title that it was this site:

https://www.plugsocketmuseum.nl/

The collection of plugs and sockets focuses on the following two categories:

1. Plugs and sockets that are used for domestic purposes. That means 220-240 Volt / 10-16 Amp, or 100-125 Volt / 15-20 Amp devices that can be found in homes and offices, including, multi-plugs, adapter plugs, power cords that come with various types of appliance couplers.

2. Plugs and sockets for single phase heavy duty, or three- phase applications in homes and/or workshops. The three-phase section is restricted to 400 Volt / 32 Amp, or US: 250 Volt / 60 Amp, or 480 Volt / 30 Amp.

Both modern and classical material is represented in the collection.

Philippines sockets are usually hybrid Europe/US style, either without ground or with ground for US grounded plugs only.

You can also easily find the 'fully' universal wall sockets, but they get unreliable very quickly.

Plugs are anything goes and you get a free adapter with every appliance you buy.

Grounded EU plugs usually end up without ground.

Aircon use a whole other plug with ground, but there's a good chance the electrician didn't actually wire up the ground.

I'd argue that our swiss plug (N in the list) is really good, it is compact so you can have plugs with every wall switches but it is polarized. Also we had ground with differential protection (30mA) built in our homes for as long as I can remember.

The recessed updated sockets are good. The non recessed plugs were so bad for all kinda of reasons.

Yeah, I think they introduced the flat sockets to be compatible with older T1 swiss plugs which were not triangular.

https://www.plugsocketmuseum.nl/CH/CH-T1_plug.jpg

That was a bad idea because it was easy to get shocked.

Swiss plugs are J, N is Brazilian (Earth pin slightly closer to the center line).

You are right, I just looked at the general shape.

The color choices for the map are questionable, and rather unreadable for color-blind people.

I’m not colour blind and it is unreadable for me!

Why does Mallorca, Menorca and Ibiza appears as if they were countries, when they are islands belonging to Spain ? [1]

Just curious

[1] https://world-power-plugs.com/europe

Everywhere is split out, also Scotland, Svalbard, Azores etc.

If I was an alien and I had a list of things civilization must meet before I make first contact, standard electrical plug would be on that list.

I'd settle for standard voltage and frequency.

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