

Folding Plug System - r7000
http://www.minkyu.co.uk/Site/Product/Entries/2009/4/20_Folding_Plug_System.html

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axod
This was posted on Reddit about a year ago (Or more?). IMHO it would be far
too flimsy to be safe/usable, and wouldn't pass safety regulations.

Something inbetween US and UK plugs would be nice. UK is rock solid, can't
bend pins, has no chance of sparks, will _never_ fall out of the socket, has
fuse + other safety features (Covered pins), socket only opens Live+Neutral
once earth is inserted etc, but is a bit clunky.

OTOH, US plugs spark, get bent pins, fall out of the wall, don't require an
earth+fuse, are pretty dangerous IMHO, but on the plus side they're pretty
flat :/

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weavejester
The europlugs have some pretty solid pins and don't seem to fall out of
sockets, but they don't have an earth pin or fuses.

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jrg
Of course some euro plugs have what I'd call a "sneaky" earth, that isn't a
pin but simply a contact on the other two parts of the socket and plug.

See the two pictures in this (quickly googled) discussion, for a clear
illustration -
[http://forum.expatica.com/print.html&client=printer&...](http://forum.expatica.com/print.html&client=printer&f=135&t=112082)

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alaricsp
Nice!

I wonder how well the moving contacts to bring the power from the live and
neutral to the power cable will survive, though - they may become worn and
intermittent with time.

Do we really need the fold-out wings? Could we not just rotate the live and
neutral pins into place, then plug it in? Or do the standards require a
certain outline to keep fingers from the plugging-in bits?

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hailpixel
The UK is notorious for their safety precautions. Not only do all plugs have a
fuse _in_ them, but wall outlets are usually behind a local fuse even before a
home's circuit breaker.

The fold out wings provide a great way to minimize the possibility of contact
with the live contact.

And it's just so pretty!

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axod
... and flimsy. I would not trust it.

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hailpixel
Indeed. The biggest problem is going to be rotary connection for the live and
neutral contacts, but the actual housing would be quite solid I'd imagine.
Thermoplastic at those dimensions can be extremely durable.

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makmanalp
One of the best workarounds I've seen. Sometimes full solutions are just not
possible (i.e. changing the whole standard plug system in a country).

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RiderOfGiraffes
I thought I'd seen this before. A quick search found this:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=670856>

If you're interested in this, you might like to read the discussion there as
well. Many points are being re-made.

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ccc3
A brilliant design. And a brilliant design presentation.

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edu
Cool! Would like to know how he made the first prototype

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hailpixel
Looks like good ol' fashion resin 3D printing or rough form injection molding.
Most university ID shops have those facilities now-a-days.

Check out <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3D_printing>
(<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fused_deposition_modeling> more specifically)

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dazmax
It's great because Apple pretty much has to license it, given how much pride
they take in their power cord design.

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yangyang
That looks very good. I really hope they become commercially available and
commonplace.

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sh1mmer
I love this. Having used UK plugs for most of my life I know how cumbersome
they can be.

My only concern is that many devices which change voltages such as computer
power supplies often have some hefty capacitors in them. Even with the regular
plugs I've occasionally got shocked (enough to hurt my fingers) by touching
both pins while the device is plugged in.

If people have to rotate the pins in order to use the plug it's possible some
devices with capacitors would be less safe to use as there is a risk that the
capacitors would empty whenever you tried to rotate the pins.

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jasonkester
That's really cool.

I find that I can get by with a Euro plug pretty much anywhere except the USA.
Southeast Asia, Oz, and other places that standardize on US (or AUS) plugs
often also accept the round-pinned EU plug.

Here in the UK, I just keep a teaspoon in my laptop bag for cramming into the
ground slot. Thus, opening the other two holes wide enough to jam the EU plug
in.

AC adapters on laptops already know how to handle any voltage/frequency combo
in the world. It's just a matter of of physically cramming the metal bits into
the socket.

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natemartin
I love seeing the sequence from design -> prototype.

I agree with some of the other posters though, any time you have a lot of
current going through a connection that rotates / moves, you have the
potential of reliability problems.

However, I don't think those are insurmountable problems, and good engineering
could make this a reality.

One advantage is, if I recall correctly, UK is 220V as opposed to US 110V, so
less current will be flowing through those contacts.

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weavejester
The UK is traditionally 240V, but I believe it's 230V now, so as to be in line
with the rest of the EU.

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danw
230V -6% +10%, which is just a fancy standards hack to make all of EU
technically 230 without having to change voltage from 240

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tsuraan
A bit off-topic, but does anybody know how that site is displaying its video?
I don't have flash or moonlight installed, so it was a bit of a shock to hear
my computer actually playing a video feed. I browsed their HTML source, but I
didn't see any object tags, video tags, nor anything else that would obviously
play video.

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lallysingh
The page gave me a "plugin not installed" error (from firefox) for quicktime.

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mightymouse
I wonder what material they've confirmed they'll be using to ensure that it
doesn't just snap and break under the regular wear of plug usage.

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zv
Idea is good, but it is still workaround for bigger problem.

World needs better designed power plugs

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andyf
I often wonder why plug design is drastically different between North America,
Europe, and Asia.

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gb
There's more to it than that even:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AC_power_plugs_and_sockets>

