
Why Britain has the best wall sockets on earth - chestnut-tree
http://www.fastcodesign.com/3032807/why-england-has-the-best-wall-sockets-on-earth
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aidanlister
My first reaction was that the author is so blusteringly excited to be British
that he has failed to make an objective assessment. After watching the video,
I see he's also a presenter and comedian, so perhaps this is to be expected.

I've moved around enough to have lived with almost every type of wall plug
[1], and hands down the Australian plug is definitely the nicest.

It ticks all the same boxes, plus it's half the size, and the non-planar pins
prevent it from slipping out of over-worn sockets.

[1]
[http://worldwanders.com/tcomp/spread%20of%20plugs%20around%2...](http://worldwanders.com/tcomp/spread%20of%20plugs%20around%20the%20world.gif)
[2] [http://media-
cdn.tripadvisor.com/media/photo-s/01/36/c7/8b/o...](http://media-
cdn.tripadvisor.com/media/photo-s/01/36/c7/8b/outlet-jpg.jpg)

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fancyketchup
These are really not very strong arguments:

Prong Design (probably the strongest of the bunch): I'll grant that it is
_possible_ to accidentally electrocute oneself with North American plugs, but
I've never heard of this happening to anyone in real life. I'd be curious to
know how many injuries or deaths can actually be attributed to this design
before declaring the extra complication and expense of the British design to
be worth the trouble.

Socket Design: We have shuttered outlets in the US, too, and they work the
same way. Sure, not every building has them (particularly old buildings), but
they are available at any hardware store and easy to install. In any case,
shuttered outlets are not specific to the the British plug.

Built-in Fuses: This really had me scratching my head. How is it a _good_
thing that English houses don't have fuses to protect the infrastructure? What
happens when a wire shorts inside the wall? Don't worry! Your vacuum cleaner
will be completely safe as your house is burning to the ground around it!
Maybe the author just didn't express his point very well, but this frankly
sounds downright dangerous.

Circuit Design: This is a standard feature on the regular NEMA 5-15 plugs we
use in the US (at least for the replacement plugs you can buy at the hardware
store). The lug for the ground pin is closer to the cord end so that the
ground wire will have more slack than the live and neutral wires. Again, not
specific to British plugs.

~~~
AlyssaRowan
The fuses in the plugs are in _addition_ to the trips (formerly fuses) in the
consumer unit for each circuit (and a master one too, I think?).

We run on roughly double your voltage and a slightly lower frequency - 230V @
50Hz - with usually a fairly decent amount of amps available, so a little more
protection is a good thing. Mains here is _hot_ , and it tends to tense/jam
the muscles in your arm so it's hard to pull away, so you do _not_ really want
to be friends with it.

~~~
fancyketchup
Ah, I see. Sounds like the author was just confused then.

But I'm afraid I still don't see the _advantage_ of having a fuse or (circuit
breaker) in the plug itself. What is the rationale behind having two over-
current devices in series? Circuit breakers and fuses (c.f. ground fault
interrupters) don't really do anything to prevent a human from being zapped:
They're there to prevent fires. You can easily stop a heart (or cause burns)
without drawing anywhere near enough current to activate the protection. If
Britons think circuit breakers are so unreliable that they need two, why put
on on the plug instead of both in the distribution pane?

~~~
scaramanga
We have RCD on the main loop for outlets.

Having the fuse on individual devices plug is just handy.

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atesti
I can't really see any advantage over good German sockets and plugs: -Everyone
can insulate parts of the two pins and it's often the case: I can never
accidentally touch pins. Either they are insulated or the big "Schuko" plug
does not let my finger in between -The ripping out is also done like that in
every good device: The ground line must be longer and rip last -Plugs which
are sold as childsafe have a mechanism where only if both pins are inserted
they unlock and allow insertion. -And of course fuses belong in the consumer
unit (together with mandatory RCDs) and maybe the device itself.

The reason the UK has fuses in the socket, if I remember correctly, are the
wiring forms a ring to allow for more amps which are needed for electrical
heating. If the sockets have many amps, all wires of devices would need to be
thick. To allow them to be thinner, a fuse must be in the socket.

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PhantomGremlin
When I spent some time in England in the good old days (about 30 years ago),
you often got to screw your own plug onto the end of a power cord. Having
random end-users do that didn't seem nearly as safe as having a plug
permanently molded onto the cord. Does that problem still exist?

And then there were the fuse boxes with end-user-accessible wire in them.[1]
If the circuit keeps tripping, then just use more wire strands when you
replace the "fuse". I'm surprised that half of London (the older half) didn't
burn down every year. :-)

[1]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuse_%28electrical%29#UK](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuse_%28electrical%29#UK)

~~~
scaramanga
Nah, everything comes with a plug for the last couple of decades or so.

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scrumper
They are indeed murder on bare feet. The article sadly didn't mention two
other excellent aspects:

\- They are very, very secure: you pretty much can't rip a British plug out of
the wall with the cord. My US plugs, by comparison, are always coming half out
and terrifying me with thoughts of sparking fires.

\- All multi-way adapters are oriented the same way, so you _know_ your stuff
will fit. Contrast with a US 4 way, where one will be vertical, one
horizontal, and absolutely none will let you plug in a 'wall wart' without
blocking access to another free socket.

~~~
AlyssaRowan
It's true about the feet. The earth pin fits _right_ into the tender bit of
your foot.

In every other respect, they're brilliant.

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richliss
One of the things we can be truly proud of... kudos to the original designers
and engineers who thought "Lets do it properly".

My dad taught electrical engineering, and I think how reassuring the absolute
confidence must have been with us kids using plugs, and even pulling on
cables. He knew it was going to be a minor inconvenience for him to recable
it, and absolutely no risk of electrocution to us.

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ksec
They are definitely much safer. But I always wonder, if we have a choice and
redesign things again, could we make a better and smaller design while
retaining all the safety features?

