Mark with a ZBritish plugs
nocturneI see you have never encountered a goat head.
Yo, what’s wrong with your goats?
TheMadCodger
CatoblepasI’m glad they’ve never managed to puncture my sneakers while hiking, because god knows I’ve had enough embedded in my soles when I check.
You just brought back memories of my siblings and I walking around outside barefoot to the point these things penetrated our shoes more easily than our feet.
In rural southern Utah these things are literally everywhere. If you go out with cheap foam flip-flops, the entire bottom of the shoe will embedded with dozens of these seconds after you start walking around lol
Kind of oddly satisfying to pull them out of the soles of shoes tbf
I’ve always heard them called sand spurs, and they’re the devil. Nothing in nature needs to be that sharp, ffs.
At least chestnuts have the decency to be really localized and large, despite being spikey balls of evil. These little fuckers are miniature, everywhere, and can hide in carpet for a solid six months before you notice them the one time you decide to go barefoot.
I’m so glad we don’t have these where I live.
I think you’re thinking of sand burrs. Which I’m pretty sure are different, but also fucking nasty plants. They end up in our poor dogs’ paws late summer/early fall. If I could eliminate any plant. That one.
Lovely, I’m glad there’s more than one of these hellplants.
Do you just casually have those lying around your house? What about sharp glass? Or acid pools? Or tigers?
They come into the house on your clothes, your shoes, my dog’s fur. Yes they end up lying around the house. The number of times I have stepped on one barefoot in the middle of the night is far too high.
But why do you leave power cords lying around?
MelodiousFunkKeeps me on my toes.
And off of them if you fuck up, I’d imagine.
Oh look that’s something ninjas spread on the road when they run.
MinnesotaGoddami have lost two tires to goatsheads in the last month and i hate it
I would be mildly annoyed at 110v in easy reach with metal with out an isolation switch.
Yeah, I think brits and other europeans can generally agree on american plugs
So how does it work in the US then? Is there a law that everything needs to be isolated very well, no metal shells allowed or people just getting electrocuted from time to time
They are referencing the lack of isolation on the prongs for US plugs. If a US plug isn’t fully inserted, it’s possible for both of the two prongs to form electrical connections with the outlet, whilst not yet being fully inserted.
This means a small part of the prongs which are now at 110V potential to each other is exposed, and could potentially be touched by a child, or cause a short circuit if an object gets into the gap.
So yeah, the electrical code in the US for household plugs is just straight unsafe.
For comparison, on non grounded EU plugs this could also occur. Which is why non grounded EU plugs are required to either have insulation on the upper half of the prongs, or the plug needs to have “shield” that fits into the recessed recepticles we use, thereby blocking access to the prongs.
:) only the strong survive.
An actual answer: you very quickly learn to pull in a way that prevents your fingers from slipping onto the prongs, or you just pull the cord to remove things from outlets. That creates its own long term problems, but most people don’t really give a shit because the US is built off cheap plastic shit that you simply replace when it breaks.
That being said, I’ve received like 5 or 6 good hits of the 110v wake up due to the eccentricities of the US plug. It hurts like a bitch, but probably won’t kill you if you don’t have a pace maker and aren’t grabbing something grounded with the other hand.
We also only use GFCI in the bathroom and kitchen and don’t use RCD breakers. It’s honestly astonishing that the US electrical system doesn’t kill more people.
A GFCI is the same thing as an RCD, they’re just different terms. They both have the same function: detecting leakage current, and isolating the electrical connection as soon as it does.
I am aware, but GFCI is the common term in the US, especially for outlets. RCD is used most other places. I was trying to keep the terminology consistent to what would be expected regionally.
An actual answer: you very quickly learn to pull in a way that prevents your fingers from slipping onto the prongs
…Do you, though? Because this thread is the first time I’ve considered this as a problem- which I agree it could be better designed in general but especially for child safety purposes- and I’ve been around American plugs my entire life. I’ve never been shocked, unless we’re counting the time I grabbed an electric fence because I was an idiot teenager being goaded by other idiot teenagers.
I also have big hands, but some plug designs are so low profile that if they are plugged into a particularly tight receptacle, you can’t get good leverage to remove them. You get the plug partially out, then try to reposition your grip to pull it the rest of the way or you grab it too far forward and your fingers slip while squeezing, and BAM, zapped.
Power strips are the biggest culprit for this one, since your fingers can end up on the seam between cord and strip and more easily slip under when unplugging.
just pull the cord to remove things from outlets.
For those playing along at home: please do not do this.
RhaedasNever considered that Europeans don't know the wonderful sensation of 110v. It can vary from a slight tingle (it's not even tingle, but I can't describe it) to a "holy shit" moment that throws you back, depending on how and where you touched it and how much current flows. The great thing about A/C is the cycle, unlike a DC current which can lock your muscles and keep you from letting go.
Many European electricians - and plenty of non-electrician idiots like me - will have had 240vac shocks, which are probably similar just a bit more nippy and will get worse faster than 110vac. I think the human body is also a weird electrical resistor that goes down with voltage.
I'd not describe it as 'wonderful' or a 'slight tingle'. It's a pretty fierce bite. shocking is the word I'd use.
I'd think if I'd had a few and got used to it, or if i knew it was coming maybe i'd downplay that a bit. But i've tightened up my unplugging process now (dayglow tape) to be sure i've unplugged the right plug. It was enough to know I don't want another unexpected 240vac zap.
I'd be pretty east to wrap 2 loops and 1 . . . no , leave that to electroboom.
Having switched outlets wouldn’t make US plugs any safer, at least not in any meaningful way.
The individual switches on UK outlets don’t really add significantly to safety, they’re mostly just a convenience feature, because for an electrical plug/outlet to even be considered safe in the first place, it has to be always safe, whether it’s powered or not. You can’t rely on people switching off unused outlets instead of doing actual safety design.
The main factors that make US plugs less safe than UK ones is the potential for exposed metal contacts with a closed connection to the outlet, the lack of internal fuse and the lack of polarisation, and, particularly in combination with the first point, the tendency of comparatively weak grip strength and portruding design that make it easy for a plug to become (partially) unplugged by accident.
One feature of UK plugs I really like is the built in warding of the live/neutral slots. The ground prong is longer to allow for the mechanism to unlock the hot slot when inserted. It’s essentially a built in childproofing.
Jup, that’s a really good feature. You can get aftermarket child shutters for EU style plugs as well, but they require you to twist the plug before inserting, making them kinda inconvenient, and they have to be specifically installed by parents. Though I don’t think that’s the worst thing in the world. After all, we don’t make any of our other products or home designs toddler safe by default. It’s generally regarded as the parents responsibility to ensure their home is child proof before they get a child.
But the UK version of just having it in every outlet as a hidden feature that you wouldn’t even notice if you don’t know it’s there is definitely the best approach.
(Though it does make low form factor UK plugs almost impossible, because every plug must have a ground prong, if there’s no actual safety need to have one)
AllNewTypeFacePerhaps it could be revised by adding two unearthed Europlug round-pin sockets below the broad pins, though within a recess shaped like the thin European plugs to prevent the connection of earthed plugs, and declaring Europlug to be a British standard for unearthed mains, for use with devices not requiring earthing. Not sure if the geometry would work out, though.
It’s possible to that of course, but I doubt it’s worth it. It also couldn’t be adapted as is, because fuses in each plug are always required t for UK plugs, they aren’t for EU plugs. And if you have to adapt a narrow EU plug to hold a replacable fuse would eat into size savings, require adapting the standard and require entirely new production lines for the modified plugs, so almost certainly simply not worth it.
Best plug+receptor design in the world for electrical safety.
Worst plug design in the world for bottom of foot safety.
Sounds like the problem is people leaving plugs lying on the ground? Otherwise known as user error.
Best plug+receptor design in the world for electrical safety.
That’s debatable. The plug safety features only exist because of the UK’s uniquely substandard wiring.
No it isn’t. It’s debatable if the safety features are still necessary with modern wiring, but it is objectively safer than any other plug design there is.
And the design of these features wasn’t because of “substandard” wiring. It is because the UK used to use ring circuits in old houses, which are unsuitable to be protected by central fuses/breakers, necessitating fuses in the plugs. That doesn’t make the system any less safe. As long as a fuse is present, and the circuits are adequately sized, where precisely on the circuit a fuse is located is irrelevant.
Also, the fuse inside the plug provides an utterly unique advantage that no other country has: The fuse can be used to protect the external wire from over current. Centralised fuses are exclusively designed to prevent over current on the main, internal circuit, they don’t give a crap what happens on the other side of an outlet. A central fuse will do nothing to stop you from pulling 15Amps thought a 3 amp cable. A fuse inside the plug, appropriately sized for those 3 Amps, will in fact protect the cable itself.
deegeeseSo you’re not saying it’s because the wiring is substandard, but because it’s ring circuits, which are not up to the same standard as if they used a breaker panel.
Isn’t that the same thing?
No, because the rest of the world isn’t America.
Those ring circuits WERE up to UK standard, and perfectly safe when they were constructed, and nowadays are either still covered by the standard, or grandfathered in.
The reason other counties don’t use ring circuits isn’t because they’re less safe. It’s because they’re less convenient. It’s easier and more convenient to make and use, and easier in terms of individual steps, to make seperate fused circuits instead of a ring circuit.
The reason the UK used ring circuits was because they use much less copper conduit, and given the ~copper~ everything shortage during and after WWII, the convenience of modern circuits simply wasn’t worth it.
RivalarrivalThe standards the UK adopted pass higher voltages and higher currents per household circuit than pretty much anywhere else. They adopted standards that allow them to use use less wiring, less copper to provide the same energy. They can plug in many space heaters on one circuit, where two or three would blow a breaker on a US circuit.
That higher voltage and higher current makes their household circuits inherently more dangerous than household circuits outside the UK. A fault in a UK circuit passes a lot more energy than a similar fault elsewhere, before tripping a current-limiting device. The exact same fault in a UK circuit is far more dangerous than in a circuit pretty much anywhere else in the world. The standards for household wiring in the rest of the world are a lot more restrictive than the standards adopted in the UK.
UK plugs on Japanese appliance in Japanese houses (for example) are overkill. The safety provided by the UK plugs is built into the Japanese breaker panel and wiring. Putting the UK plug/socket into a Japanese circuit provides no significant additional safety benefit. The Japanese plug/socket on a UK circuit would be extraordinarily dangerous.
The higher voltage has nothing whatsoever to do with ring circuits. The UK runs on the same 220-240V AC as all of mainland Europe. And Africa. And most of mainland Asia. And South America. And Oceania. And most of the middle east. So not quite “higher than any other country”
Also those two claims are diametrically opposed to each other. Unless UK people use over twice the amount of electricity than Americans, the higher voltage will lead to LOWER total current. That’s quite literally the specific and sole motivating factor behind choosing a higher grid voltage.
And the current a conductor can pass has nothing whatsoever to do with it’s safety. You could have 50 amps blowing through a circuit, if it’s at 12V you can still touch it without getting a shock. Your car battery is capable of peak currents of several HUNDRED amps, and those are considered safe enough to just carry around by random people with bare hands.
Again, the amount of current passed depends only on the voltage, which again, is the same in the UK as all of mainland Europe (and most of the rest of the world except America and Japan), and has been since the early 20th century, so I’ve no idea what you’re trying to go on about there.
And lastly, no it isn’t. For one, the child safety shutters on all UK outlets are certainly not contained in a Japanese breaker panel. Neither are the fuses in the plug, which protect the external wiring. And nor is the insulation on the lower legs of the contacts contained in a breaker panel. The Japanese plugs are basically the same as American. You can literally get an electric shock if you hold them wrong whilst unplugging. There’s exposed live contacts from when you start unplugging until the prongs break their connection to the outlet.
Basically everything you said is demonstrably false. I’ve rarely seen someone be this confident and this incorrect about something.
Again, the amount of current passed depends only on the voltage
Electrically, current depends on voltage and resistance/impedance. In practice, (and most importantly to this discussion), current draw actually depends primarily on the characteristics of the current limiting devices such as breakers, fuses, etc. Breakers on UK household circuits are designed to allow considerably more power than comparable breakers around the world.
This is the primary factor I am talking about.
Neither are the fuses in the plug, which protect the external wiring.
Those fuses are not needed in Japanese (or North American, or most other) plugs. We don’t need to protect the “external wiring” separately from the household wiring: the household circuit breaker is rated lower than the “external wiring”. Drawing a direct short on the “external wiring” in a UK circuit is not sufficient to trip the UK circuit breaker in the UK distribution panel; they need a secondary current limiter (a fuse) to provide that function.
We don’t need fuses in our plugs, specifically because our household circuit breakers are designed to trip well before your fuses would blow. (We do include fuses in any appliance or device with wiring not rated to full current.)
And lastly, no it isn’t. For one, the child safety shutters on all UK outlets are certainly not contained in a Japanese breaker panel.
The function provided by those shutters is achieved in the Japanese wiring by lower voltage, narrow holes in receptacles (allowable because they don’t need as large a contact to safely carry the lower rated current) and whole-house AFCI/GFCI.
Breakers on UK household circuits are designed to allow considerably more power than comparable breakers around the world.
That is utterly irrelevant. Circuit breakers and fuses are designed for the exclusive and sole purpose of protecting the circuit from being overloaded. A 100 amp circuit with a 100 Amp fuse is exactly as safe as a 20 amp circuit with a 20 amp fuse.
To protect humans from electric shock we use residual current devices, which trip at 10’s of Milli amps. And here’s actually an advantage of a ring circuit. It forces you to place RCD protection on every single outlet in the building, instead of skimping on costs by just putting it on the branches that legally require one, like bathrooms and kitchens.
Those fuses are not needed in Japanese (or North American, or most other) plugs. We don’t need to protect the “external wiring” separately from the household wiring: the household circuit breaker is rated lower than the “external wiring”. Drawing a direct short on the “external wiring” in a UK circuit is not sufficient to trip the UK circuit breaker in the UK distribution panel; they need a secondary current limiter (a fuse) to provide that function.
That’s just demonstrably untrue. An individual branch of a household circuits in both the US or America can easily be fused at 20A (fun fact: European branch circuis, because of the higher voltage that you were raging against in your first comment, can handle more electric load whilst having SMALLER 16A breakers). In both Japan and America you can buy extension cords rated for 10 or 15A. So no. You just told a straight up, unequivocal lie there.
The function provided by those shutters is achieved in the Japanese wiring by lower voltage, narrow holes in receptacles (allowable because they don’t need as large a contact to safely carry the lower rated current) and whole-house AFCI/GFCI.
No it isn’t. 110V is still dangerous to a child, and if you think overwide I hope to god you aren’t, or ever become a parent. Also, as I stated, your plugs literally allow for an electric shock to happen whilst unplugging them because they’re so terrible. As for whole house GFCI, that is by necessity included in a ring circuit that wants GFCI on any outlet at all.
Also you seem to fundamentally misunderstand the relationship of current and voltage. For a given electrical appliance, with a given wattage, a lower voltage means it needs to draw more current, not less. That’s why the US Japan need to have 20A household breakers, whereas in the EU 16A branches are more than enough, whilst still providing a higher load handling capability than a 20A Japanese fuse.
That is utterly irrelevant. Circuit breakers and fuses are designed for the exclusive and sole purpose of protecting the circuit from being overloaded. A 100 amp circuit with a 100 Amp fuse is exactly as safe as a 20 amp circuit with a 20 amp fuse.
Stick your finger in a 20A outlet, and you’ll pull out a burned finger. Stick your finger in a 100A outlet, and you’ll lose your hand, or your life. More power will pass through you before the circuit can be interrupted.
That’s just demonstrably untrue. An individual branch of a household circuits in both the US or Japan can easily be fused at 20A
Our appliance wiring is rated to carry 20A from the receptacle throughout the appliance, or to a secondary current limiter within the appliance. Since the wiring is rated to the 20A the circuit can provide, we don’t need the secondary fuse in the plug. This is part of our appliance wiring standards.
fun fact: European branch circuis, because of the higher voltage that you were raging against in your first comment, can handle more electric load whilst having SMALLER 16A breakers)
Obviously. That has been part of my point the entire time: You use fewer, higher wattage circuits. UK circuits carries more power to pass through your body than a comparable circuit elsewhere in the world. The household wiring standards in the rest of the world are more restrictive than they are in the UK. You are repeating the exact points that I (and others) have been making from the start.
LogicalDrivelpopcorn.michaeljackson
Stick your finger in a 20A outlet, and you’ll pull out a burned finger. Stick your finger in a 100A outlet, and you’ll lose your hand, or your life. More power will pass through you before the circuit can be interrupted
Did you just deliberately ignore everything I wrote ? Both 20 and 100amps are several hundred times more current than it needs takes to kill you. And the resistance of your body is way to high to pass more than a few hundred milliamps anyway.
For a given voltage, the outcome of recieving a shock on a 20A fused circuit is literally indistinguishable and fully identical to that of receiving a shock on a 100A fused circuit. Identical. Literally.
Our appliance wiring is rated to carry 20A from the receptacle throughout the appliance, or to a secondary current limiter within the appliance. Since the wiring is rated to the 20A the circuit can provide, we don’t need the secondary fuse in the plug. This is part of our appliance wiring standards.
No it isn’t. I literally just told you you can buy 15A rated extension cords in Japan in the comment you’re replying to. Are you deliberately ignoring half of what I wrote ?
Obviously. That has been part of my point the entire time: You use fewer, higher wattage circuits. UK circuits carries more power to pass through your body than a comparable circuit elsewhere in the world. The household wiring standards in the rest of the world are more restrictive than they are in the UK. You are repeating the exact points that I (and others) have been making from the start.
Wrong. Again. The current limit imposed by the internal resistance of your body at voltages in the range of 100-200 is a few hundred milliamps. Maybe an amp or two if you stick electrodes inside yourself, and anything higher than 100 going through your heart is lethal anyway. The power that will pass through your body depends exclusively and solely on the voltage. The capacity and fusing of the circuit is utterly irrelevant, unless it’s fused at like 40 MILLI amps.
UK ring circuits are fused at 30 Amps.
Man I fucking love how you literally just picked out the first line in a comment pointing out another one of the things you said that are objectively untrue (a dead short not blowing a UK ring fuse) and ignore everything else in the comment. You must have seen the comment to quote part of it, and yet you ignore it entirely. You’re clearly and demonstrably not arguing in good faith.
No it isn’t. I literally just told you you can buy 15A rated extension cords in Japan in the comment you’re replying to. 15, is in fact less than 20, just fyi. Are you deliberately ignoring half of what I wrote ?
I covered that. Different rating. That 15A cord will survive a 20A fault. Its rated at 15A because the voltage drop will be out of spec at 20A draw, not because it will be a fire hazard at 20A.
My point is that UK appliances are specifically not designed to trip UK breakers in a fault. US devices are.
In every jurisdiction where fuses are not required in plugs, appliance standards require the appliance to be able to trip the household breaker.
My point is that UK appliances are specifically not designed to trip UK breakers in a fault. US devices are.
In every jurisdiction where fuses are not required in plugs, appliance standards require the appliance to be able to trip the household breaker. This is a fundamental concept of electrical safety.
Nope, again completely untrue. Breakers are only required to trip if the circuit becomes overloaded.
Your breakers don’t, and can’t give a shit about what’s happening on the other side of the outlet.
Your device could slowly be melting itself into a pile of bunting plastic, as long as it’s drawing less than 16 Amps to do so, the breakers will not trip. As I’ve pointed out, repeatedly already, and you have repeatedly ignored, breakers are solely and exclusively for protecting the wire from overheating /overloading.
And in fact, the fused plugs actually make it way MORE likely for something to trip on a device side fault in the UK, but the fault current only has to be like 3Amps to kill the fuse. In every other place of the world, fault current needs to be at least 16A before anything trips.
That’s actually false. You’re conflating the resistance of “skin” with the resistance if the “body”. Once you burn away that skin, your internal resistance drops substantially. I address that point, quite literally, in the very next sentence before you cut off the quote. Like I’m literally answering your point in the other half of the comment that you misleadingly cropped and quoted.
At this point I think calling this behaviour accidental would be an insult your intelligence, and just assume that you know exactly what you’re doing, and are arguing in bad faith and intellectually dishonesty completely on purpose, so stop. Just go away. I’m done. You’re either fully incapable of, or unwilling too, engage in honest debate, so I’m not linger interested in continuing this.
Nope, again completely untrue. Breakers are only required to trip if the circuit becomes overloaded.
Breakers are only required to trip if the circuit is overloaded. That part is correct.
The internal resistance of drastically undersized wiring may not be capable of passing sufficient current to overload the household breaker. And yet, pretty much the entire world (except the UK) doesn’t require fuses on their plugs. The unfused power cords for those non-UK appliances are either a fire hazard OR those cords are required to be able to carry sufficient current to trip the current limiter without catching fire. The latter is, indeed, the case. This is a big part of UL, CSA, CE, and other electrical certification standards around the world.
And in fact, the fused plugs actually make it way MORE likely for something to trip on a device side fault in the UK, because the current only has to be like 3Amps to kill the fuse. In every other place of the world, current needs to be at least 16A before anything trips.
Here again, you’re demonstrating my exact point, despite claiming that what I am saying is “completely untrue”: The rest of the world builds its appliances to tolerate at least that 16A fault. For the UK to use that exact same manner of protection, they would need to build their appliances to tolerate a 30A fault. The same appliance would need a much heavier power cord in the UK than in the EU.
Since no rational person would want to overbuild each and every appliance to be able to tolerate a 30A fault, they included a fuse in their plug. That plug, unneeded in the rest of the world, is an essential component in the UK. That plug is what allows the UK to be able to safely use the world’s 16A appliances on UK 30A breakers.
(No, the rest of the world doesn’t need 16A before “anything” trips. The rest of the world includes their fuses inside the appliance, immediately after the cord rather than on the plug end.)
The internal resistance of drastically undersized wiring may not be capable of passing sufficient current to overload the household breaker
Yeah. If you undersized a en entire houses ring circuit at AWG24, then indeed a 30A fuse wouldn’t be tripped. Though on the plus side, to even achieve it you would need to undersize the wire to such a massive degree that the wire itself just becomes a fuse.
In a our real world overhere, of fucking course a ring circuit can pass enough current to trip it’s breaker, and it’s fucking laughable to claim they can’t.
Here again, you’re demonstrating my exact point, despite claiming that what I am saying is “completely untrue”: The rest of the world builds its appliances to tolerate at least that 16A fault. For the UK to use that exact same manner of protection, they would need to build their appliances to tolerate a 30A fault. The same appliance would need a much heavier power cord in the UK than in the EU.
No they don’t. They can actually use much smaller power cords. Because there’s a fuse in the plug itself. If the plug itself has 1A fuse, then no matter what happens, the maximum amount of current the device can ever consume is 1A, so 1A is the highest fault current that device will ever have to handle. The UK system actually makes fault protection on the device side much better and easiest.
No they don’t. They can actually use much smaller power cords.
You read what you wanted to read, and not what I actually wrote:
The rest of the world builds its appliances to tolerate at least that 16A fault. For the UK to use that exact same manner of protection,
The rest of the world relies on their (ostensibly) 16A household circuit breaker, and not on a fuse in their plug. For the UK to rely on the household breaker, their appliances would need to be able to handle a 30A fault.
That fused plug is not necessary in the rest of the world. The rest of the world builds their power cables to handle 16A, and puts their 1A fuse inside the body of the appliance. The UK needs that overbuilt plug, specifically because their household wiring standards are so much less restrictive than those of the rest of the world.
I think you’ve lost the plot. Every time you argue for a feature provided by the UK plug that isn’t needed in global plugs, you’re making my point for me: The UK plugs are vastly overengineered. The necessity of that overengineering is due to less-restrictive household wiring standards.
The higher voltage has nothing whatsoever to do with ring circuits. The UK runs on the same 220-240V AC as all of mainland Europe. And Africa. And most of mainland Asia. And South America. And Oceania. And most of the middle east. So not quite “higher than any other country”
Also those two claims are diametrically opposed to each other. Unless UK people use over twice the amount of electricity than Americans, the higher voltage will lead to LOWER total current. That’s quite literally the specific and sole motivating factor behind choosing a higher grid voltage.
And the current a conductor can pass has nothing whatsoever to do with it’s safety. You could have 50 amps blowing through a circuit, if it’s at 12V you can still touch it without getting a shock. Your car battery is capable of peak currents of several HUNDRED amps, and those are considered safe enough to just carry around by random people with bare hands…
The Japanese plugs are basically the same as American. You can literally get an electric shock if you hold them wrong whilst unplugging. There’s exposed live contacts from when you start unplugging until the prongs break their connection to the outlet.
Basically everything you said is demonstrably false. I’ve rarely seen someone be this confident and this incorrect about something.
That is utterly irrelevant. Circuit breakers and fuses are designed for the exclusive and sole purpose of protecting the circuit from being overloaded. A 100 amp circuit with a 100 Amp fuse is exactly as safe as a 20 amp circuit with a 20 amp fuse or a 5 amp circuit with a 5 amp fuse. If the voltage is above ~100-200V, all 3 of these are hundreds of times the amount of current it would take to deliver a fatal electric shock, and none of those fuses would trip from you getting shocked.
And a dead short on a 240V network will literally trip everything. UK ring circuits are fused at 30 Amps. A dead short at 240V with only the internal resistance of copper wiring would pull current in the neighborhood of 1000 amps. 1000, somewhat famously, being slightly larger than 30, making this another lie there.
And even if it weren’t a lie, how on earth does the location of the fuse make a difference in safety here ? If it’s in the wall or in the plug, as long as it’s there and does it’s job both would be equally safe.
The function provided by those shutters is achieved in the Japanese wiring by lower voltage, narrow holes in receptacles (allowable because they don’t need as large a contact to safely carry the lower rated current) and whole-house AFCI/GFCI.
No it isn’t. 110V is still dangerous to a child, and if you think otherwise I hope to god you aren’t, or ever become a parent. Also, as I stated, your plugs literally allow for an electric shock to happen whilst unplugging them because they’re so terrible. As for whole house GFCI, that is by necessity included in a ring circuit that wants GFCI on any outlet at all.
Also you seem to fundamentally misunderstand the relationship of current and voltage. For a given electrical appliance, with a given wattage, a lower voltage means it needs to draw more current, not less. That’s why the US Japan need to have 20A household breakers, whereas in the EU 16A branches are more than enough, whilst still providing a higher load handling capability than a 20A Japanese fuse. A 1000 Watt microwave plugged into a Japanese socket will draw over twice as much current as a 1000 Watt microwave plugged into an EU or UK socket (which also means it produces 4 times the amount of electrical waste energy as heat, though that is generally negligible for short household cable runs either way. Can make a difference on the scale of a country though).
For a given voltage, the outcome of recieving a shock on a 20A fused circuit is literally indistinguishable and fully identical to that of receiving a shock on a 100A fused circuit. Identical. Literally.
No it isn’t. I literally just told you you can buy 15A rated extension cords in Japan in the comment you’re replying to. 15, is in fact less than 20, just fyi.
Wrong. Again. The current limit imposed by the internal resistance of your body at voltages in the range of 100-200 is a few hundred milliamps. Maybe an amp or two if you stick electrodes inside yourself, and anything higher than 100 mA going through your heart is already lethal anyway. You’re gonna be dead 200 times over waiting for your 20A fuse to save you. The power that will pass through your body depends exclusively and solely on the voltage. The capacity and fusing of the circuit is utterly irrelevant, unless it’s fused at like 40 MILLI amps.
ANY cable being driven above it’s rated load is a fire hazard. There are healthy margins in those ratings, so going slightly over is likely not going to have any affect, but those margins are for good reason (namely people like you thinking it’s fine to plug a 15A cable into a 20A circuit without external fusing or current limiting), and deliberately overloading any part of an electric circuit is ALWAYS dangerous and stupid.
And what about 7A cables you can get in japan ? you can explicitly get 0.75mm² cables, which are only rated to 7Amps. Just as confident of blasting 20A through those ? Almost 9 times the amount of waste heat being generated in the core than at it’s max rated load.
Your device could slowly be melting itself into a pile of burning plastic, as long as it’s drawing less than 16 Amps to do so, the breakers will not trip. As I’ve pointed outñ
And in fact, the fused plugs actually make it way MORE likely for something to trip on a device side fault in the UK, because the current only has to be like 3Amps to kill the fuse. In every other place of the world, current needs to be at least 16A before anything trips.
I address that point, quite literally, in a later a paraph where I write
Maybe an amp or two if you stick electrodes inside yourself
So what happened here ? Did you not read my comment ? Did you not understand it ? Or did you read it understand, and then continue to pretend like I haven’t already explicitly addressed this anyway ?
Here’s a list of prior arguments I’ve made, that you fully ignored. Until.you give me s good faith really to THE ENTIRETY of each argument,. I’m ignoring you.
The higher voltage has nothing whatsoever to do with ring circuits. The UK runs on the same 220-240V AC as all of mainland Europe. And Africa. And most of mainland Asia. And South America. And Oceania. And most of the middle east. So not quite “higher than any other country”
240V @ 30A is the highest on the planet. You consistently ignored current rating, despite recognizing that without the special, overengineered fused plugs, appliances would be exposed to them. Your inclusion of this is dishonest.
~~Also those two claims are diametrically opposed to each other. Unless UK people use over twice the amount of electricity than Americans, the higher voltage will lead to LOWER total current.~
The claim you’re rebutting is not the claim that was made. The claim that was made was that each UK circuit has higher current than a comparable North American circuit. Which is true. A UK household circuit is at 30A, while Canadian/US/Mexican is at 15/20A. American and UK homes use roughly the same amount of total power, but the American home typically distributes that power with roughly 4 times as many, lower-current circuits.
And the current a conductor can pass has nothing whatsoever to do with it’s safety.
Both of us have rebutted that several times already, in recognizing that a low-current wire is a fire hazard when connected to a high-current household circuit. You make that argument yourself, below.
The Japanese plugs are basically the same as American. You can literally get an electric shock if you hold them wrong whilst unplugging. There’s exposed live contacts from when you start unplugging until the prongs break their connection to the outlet.
Conceded. The insulated prongs on the UK sockets are not “overengineering”. Such prongs are used on Europlugs as well. That leaves the extremely large size of the contacts, necessitating the shutters.
Basically everything you said is demonstrably false. I’ve rarely seen someone be this confident and this incorrect about something.
Everything? Really? My “rebuttal” is to ignore this ad hom.
That is utterly irrelevant. Circuit breakers and fuses are designed for the exclusive and sole purpose of protecting the circuit from being overloaded. A 100 amp circuit with a 100 Amp fuse is exactly as safe as a 20 amp circuit with a 20 amp fuse or a 5 amp circuit with a 5 amp fuse. If the voltage is above ~100-200V, all 3 of these are hundreds of times the amount of current it would take to deliver a fatal electric shock, and none of those fuses would trip from you getting shocked.
The rest of the world safely uses unfused plugs. Every argument you make that requires fuses supports my contention.
And a dead short on a 240V network will literally trip everything. UK ring circuits are fused at 30 Amps. A dead short at 240V with only the internal resistance of copper wiring would pull current in the neighborhood of 1000 amps. 1000, somewhat famously, being slightly larger than 30, making this another lie there.
You’re assuming the internal resistance of a wire of sufficient gauge. An undersized wire - such as a power cord intended to be used on a 16A EU appliance - may not be capable of drawing 30A, let alone 1000, without catching fire. It may only draw 28A while it is glowing red hot. That same unfused power cable is perfectly acceptable and perfectly safe on a 16A EU circuit, but is unsafe on a UK household circuit without that special UK plug.
And even if it weren’t a lie, how on earth does the location of the fuse make a difference in safety here ? If it’s in the wall or in the plug, as long as it’s there and does it’s job both would be equally safe.
You’re ignoring the original point and arguing something tangential and irrelevant. The rest of the world safely uses unfused plugs. Which means that their power cables are simpler in design and construction, but necessitates that their power cable must be able to survive the full rated household current. The UK does not use this “unfused plug” design philosophy. The reason they don’t use it is because it would necessitate that their power cables be capable of surviving 30A faults, rather than the 16A in the EU.
The UK does not restrict their household supply circuits to 16A. They allow their household circuits to carry 30A. That standardization decision necessitates the fused plug that the rest of the world simply doesn’t need.
The function provided by those shutters is achieved in the Japanese wiring by lower voltage, narrow holes in receptacles (allowable because they don’t need as large a contact to safely carry the lower rated current) and whole-house AFCI/GFCI.
No it isn’t. 110V is still dangerous to a child, and if you think otherwise I hope to god you aren’t, or ever become a parent. Also, as I stated, your plugs literally allow for an electric shock to happen whilst unplugging them because they’re so terrible. As for whole house GFCI, that is by necessity included in a ring circuit that wants GFCI on any outlet at all.
Again, conceded: The sleeved contacts are not part of the “overengineering” of the plug. The EU plug uses a similar design. American and Japanese plugs are deficient in this aspect.
Also you seem to fundamentally misunderstand the relationship of current and voltage. For a given electrical appliance, with a given wattage, a lower voltage means it needs to draw more current, not less. That’s why the US Japan need to have 20A household breakers, whereas in the EU 16A branches are more than enough, whilst still providing a higher load handling capability than a 20A Japanese fuse. A 1000 Watt microwave plugged into a Japanese socket will draw over twice as much current as a 1000 Watt microwave plugged into an EU or UK socket (which also means it produces 4 times the amount of electrical waste energy as heat, though that is generally negligible for short household cable runs either way. Can make a difference on the scale of a country though).
Not an accurate observation of my understanding at all, and not particularly relevant to the discussion. The topic of discussion is the relationship of plugs to household wiring.
For a given voltage, the outcome of recieving a shock on a 20A fused circuit is literally indistinguishable and fully identical to that of receiving a shock on a 100A fused circuit. Identical. Literally.
Conceded, with the caveat that the RCD/AFCI/GFCI device for the 20A circuit will be more sensitive and allow lower current to pass than the equivalent RCD/AFCI/GFCI device on the 100A circuit.
No it isn’t. I literally just told you you can buy 15A rated extension cords in Japan in the comment you’re replying to. 15, is in fact less than 20, just fyi.
The 15A extension cord in Japan is designed to be plugged into a Japanese outlet. This is the same bullshit historical and technical issue that we have in our NEC code, where identical components often have different nameplate ratings. That 15A extension cord is specifically designed for use on circuits protected by 20A breakers.
Wrong. Again. The current limit imposed by the internal resistance of your body at voltages in the range of 100-200 is a few hundred milliamps. Maybe an amp or two if you stick electrodes inside yourself, and anything higher than 100 mA going through your heart is already lethal anyway. You’re gonna be dead 200 times over waiting for your 20A fuse to save you. The power that will pass through your body depends exclusively and solely on the voltage. The capacity and fusing of the circuit is utterly irrelevant, unless it’s fused at like 40 MILLI amps.
Conceded, and irrelevant to the issue at hand.
ANY cable being driven above it’s rated load is a fire hazard. There are healthy margins in those ratings, so going slightly over is likely not going to have any affect, but those margins are for good reason (namely people like you thinking it’s fine to plug a 15A cable into a 20A circuit without external fusing or current limiting), and deliberately overloading any part of an electric circuit is ALWAYS dangerous and stupid.
I addressed this with my diatribe against the NEC’s position on 15A vs 20A components. The 15A extension cord is specifically designed for use in a circuit protected by a 20A breaker. It’s an asinine provision, but it is there.
And what about 7A cables you can get in japan ? you can explicitly get 0.75mm² cables, which are only rated to 7Amps. Just as confident of blasting 20A through those ? Almost 9 times the amount of waste heat being generated in the core than at it’s max rated load.
I suspect that those cables actually do have a fuse in them, much like the fused plugs used on North American Christmas decorations.
~~Your device could slowly be melting itself into a pile of burning plastic, as long as it’s drawing less than 16 Amps to do so, the breakers will not trip. As I’ve pointed outñ
Yes, exactly. Which is why the unfused portions of that device have to be designed to handle at least 16A.
And in fact, the fused plugs actually make it way MORE likely for something to trip on a device side fault in the UK, because the current only has to be like 3Amps to kill the fuse. In every other place of the world, current needs to be at least 16A before anything trips.
Agreed. I’ve repeatedly made that exact argument in support of my point.
I address that point, quite literally, in a later a paraph where I write
Maybe an amp or two if you stick electrodes inside yourself
So what happened here ? Did you not read my comment ? Did you not understand it ? Or did you read it understand, and then continue to pretend like I haven’t already explicitly addressed this anyway ?
I confess, I didn’t read it. As It wasn’t and isn’t particularly relevant to the core issue, I’m happy to concede the point.
240V @ 30A is the highest on the planet. You consistently ignored current rating, despite recognizing that without the special, overengineered fused plugs, appliances would be exposed to them. Your inclusion of this is dishonest.
So your argument is that if you remove a necessary safety features the system is suddenly less safe. Well fucking shocker. That’s no different from me saying that if you used a ring breaker on a Japanese branch, it would be exposed to 30A and just as dangerous, and therefore concluding the Japanese system must be worse.
It’s a stupid hypothetical that tells you nothing about either system.
Also, at the point where a device is drawing short circuit current, EITHER breaker will trip most instantly, and whether the threshold is 30 or 20, the device is a smoking pile of burnt plastic afterwards anyway.
And again, breakers aren’t designed to protect devices, and devices aren’t designed to withstand some kind of massive fault tolerance. No device on planet earth is designed with the concept of "it has to survive even when a 20A short circuit happens. And even if so, it would just be “short circuit” in general. Because as I’ve pointed out, a dead short will trip EVERY breaker, period. As I’ve pointed out repeatedly, 7A rated power cords are completely legal to sell for use on 20A Japanese outlets.
But if I’m wrong feel free to correct me. But specifically. I want specific and concrete measures and steps that you aledge are taken specifically to guard devices based on the fusing of the circuit they are attached too.
The claim you’re rebutting is not the claim that was made. The claim that was made was that each UK circuit has higher current than a comparable North American circuit. Which is true. A UK household circuit is at 30A, while Canadian/US/Mexican is at 15/20A. American and UK homes use roughly the same amount of total power, but the American home typically distributes that power with roughly 4 times as many, lower-current circuits.
Sure, the current on one ring is greater than that on one branch. The total current coming in at the terminal connection though is half as much in the UK than the US. The US commonly has 100,150 or 200Amp service panels.
The rest of the world safely uses unfused plugs. Every argument you make that requires fuses supports my contention.
No it doesn’t. Because you’re laboruimg under the delusion that breakers are designed to protect anything beyond the internal wiring of your walls. They don’t give a shit about anything else. That is their singular and sole purpose.
And no, it doesn’t. Swapping one safety features (central breakers) for a second, objectively better feature (fused plugs) isn’t invalidated by some ridiculous kindergarden bullshit of “oh but if you didn’t have those fuses it would be bad”.
The code HAS those fuses, and with those fuses it is safe. Safer than a central breaker system in fact. You can’t just keep racking caveats changes and asterisks onto the UK electrical code and then laughing at how unsafe is. Every single arguement you make where you need to exclude/ignore safety features that the UK system has, is in fact an argument in favour of the system.
You’re assuming the internal resistance of a wire of sufficient gauge. An undersized wire - such as a power cord intended to be used on a 16A EU appliance - may not be capable of drawing 30A, let alone 1000, without catching fire. It may only draw 28A while it is glowing red hot. That same unfused power cable is perfectly acceptable and perfectly safe on a 16A EU circuit, but is unsafe on a UK household circuit without that special UK plug.
A power cord intended for a 16A EU appliance would be illegal to sell in the UK without an 15A fuse in the plug. Problem solved.
Again, you can’t argue the system is less safe when you keep needing to ignore safety devices to make that argument. I could just as well as say that without your indivisible branch breakers, the Japanese system is unsafe, and the UK manages to work perfectly safely without individual branch breakers. According to you, this is valid logic to demonstrate the Japanese system is worse than the UK system, and every time you mention branch circuits or branch breakers it just strengthens my point.
You’re ignoring the original point and arguing something tangential and irrelevant. The rest of the world safely uses unfused plugs. Which means that their power cables are simpler in design and construction, but necessitates that their power cable must be able to survive the full rated household current. The UK does not use this “unfused plug” design philosophy. The reason they don’t use it is because it would necessitate that their power cables be capable of surviving 30A faults, rather than the 16A in the EU.
The UK does not restrict their household supply circuits to 16A. They allow their household circuits to carry 30A. That standardization decision necessitates the fused plug that the rest of the world simply doesn’t need
I can just as easily flip that argument, about the UK safely using ring circuits with plug fuses, whilst the rest of the world needs to use branch breakers to keep their branches limited in size.
You’re literally just talking about the fact that the unique system in the UK requires unique safety features. That is itself value neutral, and adds nothing of relevance.
Not an accurate observation of my understanding at all, and not particularly relevant to the discussion. The topic of discussion is the relationship of plugs to household wiring.
Considering you were arguing that Japanese plugs need to handle LOWER current, when in reality it’s the exact opposite, they have to handle HIGHER current, I’d say it’s an accurate observation. The most common standardised all purpose plug in the UK is fused at, and rated for 13 Amps. Well below a 20Amp. Japanese circuit.
Conceded, with the caveat that the RCD/AFCI/GFCI device for the 20A circuit will be more sensitive and allow lower current to pass than the equivalent RCD/AFCI/GFCI device on the 100A circuit.
Your caveat is wrong. The baseline leakage current is affected predominantly by voltage and cable length. A 20 Amp circuit and a 100A circuit could both perfectly adequately and safely be protected by a 30mA RCD.
Conceded, and irrelevant to the issue at hand
Relevant to the issue at the time, which was you claiming the outcome of electric shock changes based purely on the amperage rating of the cable used.
I suspect that those cables actually do have a fuse in them, much like the fused plugs used on North American Christmas decorations.
So the entire core of your argument, other countries not needing fuses in cables/plugs has just gone poof then.
Yes, exactly. Which is why the unfused portions of that device have to be designed to handle at least 16A.
I’d like to a citation for the claim that appliances need to be withstand the Maximum current in a fault case. Also what “withstands” is even supposed to mean in this context.
But In my opinion, even if that’s the case, that’s a point in FAVOUR of UK plugs. You can receive literally the IDENTICAL level of safety by making the appliance 3A fault tolerant, and giving the plug a 3Amp fuse.
Isn’t the ability to make every device individually fault taulerant so much better than needing make them all fault tolerant to the max current.
It’s also far safer abroad, because you’re literally taken the fuse in the device with you. According to you, what happens when a device designed for a 16 Amp EU socket is plugged via adapter into a 20A Japanese socket. Now suddenly it has inadequate fault protection. Do the same thing with a UK socket, and it maintains the exact same level of fault tolerance it’s always had.
Agreed. I’ve repeatedly made that exact argument in support of my point.
So if you agree with all my points then what exactly is your issue with the UK ekectric code ?
It seems to me that your entire grape is based around the fact that the same features are achieved differently in the UK, and you never argue about those safety features being worse, you simply point out that they are necessary, and somehow that makes the system worse.
I happen to have (several) 30A 240V circuits in my house and shop. The one I was using tonight has an arc welder plugged into it. Under the applicable electric code in the US, this circuit has to be dedicated. It can serve only one outlet. If I want another 30A outlet, I have to wire a completely separate, dedicated circuit for that outlet.
That is the standard here in North America. The standard for EU, Japan, and the rest of the world is comparable.
The UK daisy chains 30A outlets throughout their homes. They put circuits suitable for arc welding in their bathrooms. They use circuits suitable for arc welding for their alarm clocks and hair dryers.
The UK requirements on 30A circuits and outlets are far less restrictive than the requirements on 30A circuits and outlets in the rest of the world. The UK uses substandard household circuits, necessitating their over-engineered plug.
America has UNFUSED multi cords rated for 7A.
Indeed, we do. We have detachable appliance power cords built to be plugged into a 15/20A circuit, that connect to devices labeled to 7A, so the cord is similarly labeled. But, that cord is built with at least 18AWG wire, which is normally rated to carry 16A, not 7A. And it doesn’t have our normal NEMA 5-15 socket on the downstream end, so it cannot be used as an “extension” cord.
There’s literally nothing stopping you in America from plugging a 7amp rated extension cord, into a 20A outlet, plugging in two space heater on max and a third one on low, and pull 18-19 amps through a cord rated for 7, and no fuse or breaker is going to stop you from doing that.
Other than the fact that we don’t actually have extension cords labeled (or rated) to carry 7A at all. Or that three 1500W space heaters will draw 37.5A @ 120V, which will easily trip our 15/20A breakers.
We could physically plug them into an extension cord labeled 10A, the lowest rating I’ve ever seen. But that cord will built with at least 16AWG wire, which is rated to carry 22A in chassis wiring. (It will also be very short.)
The key flaw in your argument is your failure to understand that the world does, indeed, protect its devices with household breakers. We do, indeed, build our devices to carry the full current that our household wiring could provide at an outlet, even where the device itself is intended to draw only a tiny fraction of that current. This is one of the most basic standards in use by UL, CSA, CE, and every other electrical certification body on the planet.
I know you understand the reason behind this standard. What I don’t know is why you think the rest of the world doesn’t understand it, and hasn’t codified it.