Comment on British plugs
Devial@discuss.online 4 days agoI did notably just say that the plug is the best in the world for electrical safety. I’ve made no claims of it’s usefulness or convenience outside of that.
I am also unaware of any country on the planet that uses the same plug/connector for general purpose household devices and 3 phase power. The number you provided, SN441011, also just leads to relatively generic household plug that doesn’t seem fit suited for multi phase use either, so not sure what you’re trying to say. I’ve also rarely seen places outside of industrial environments that have multiphase outlets, except in America, which has split phase power, and uses the voltage boost by going phase to phase instead of phase to ground. There’ll you’ll do often find 240V split phase outlets for high power appliances like shop heaters, electric clothes driers or EVSE
To say nothing of how comically giant every appliance plug needs to be, regardless of how low its wattage is?
It’s a minor nuisance yeah sure, but it also has the nice advantage that there’s no need to fully mould plastic around it. UK plugs are pretty much universally openable, meaning you can repair them yourself if a fuse dies, or one of the wires comes lose. It’s also really easy, and literally all you need is a single screw driver, to swap a working plug over onto a cable who’s plug has broken.
But even so, it’s again not a safety issue so not exactly relevant to my poing.
poopkins@lemmy.world 4 days ago
By this logic, a potato is the best in terms of electrical safety. That’s of course tongue in cheek, but if we’re reducing plug capabilities in the interest of calling them safe, USB-A 1.0 is the “safest” because it only outputs 5V at 3A.
I’m sure I don’t need to point out how the plug is part of a broader electrical system and forms an integral part of it. Excusing the plug from an entire host of applications by stating that a different standard solves for that is the very point of my comment.
SN441011 is the Swiss system that through its 2-, 3- and 5-pin design supports single- and three-phase for up to 11 kW in domestic applications.
As an aide, regarding fuses in UK plugs: Putting the onus of electrical safety on the user for home repairs with a screwdriver is, in my opinion, inherently unsafe, especially when there’s no safe backup through a circuit breaker. Imagine an impatient user replaces a burnt fuse with a piece of aluminum foil.
Devial@discuss.online 3 days ago
I’m concerned that you thought that was legitimately some kind of good point you made there. The fact that we’re talking about a household plug and socket is blindingly obvious from context.
I have literally never in my life thought for even a millisecond “hey wouldn’t be useful if I could plug my regular appliances into a high power outlet too ?”
How many multiphase and high power outlets do you people have that needing to be forward compatible with regular single phase household plugs is relevant ?
There’s like maybe 2 or 3 devices in a home that even need multiphase high power outlets, like ovens+ranges, electric driers or water heaters or EVSE. And none of those tend to move around much.
Also, again, as I literally stated in in comment of above, that is a matter of convenience , not safety, so it’s an irrelevant point.
What if someone does that to a car fuse ? What if someone does it one of those old circuit fuses that you still get in old buildings without breakers ?
Or imagine an impatient home owner duck tapes their breaker/GFCI to “ON” because they can’t be arsed to find the fault that makes it trip every 20 seconds.
Idiots ignoring obvious safety instructions will make most ANY system unsafe. It’s not like replaying a fuse is a hard or dangerous process. Most plugs allow you to just clip out the fuse holder with anything small and pointy, swap it with an equal, and then pop it back in. It’s not like we’re expecting people to do rocket surgery here.
poopkins@lemmy.world 3 days ago
Thank you for your concern, but the comment was, as I said, tongue in cheek.
I’m confused about why you’re being so hostile. My only intention is to understand the rationale behind labeling the UK plug as the safest. We’ve already identified that the manner of how it fits into a wider, modern domestic setting is antiquated and other standards and plugs need to fit this purpose. You for example called out IEC 60309 for EVSE, SN441011 for household appliances, and the risks that plug fuses introduce through the nature of them needing to be repaired by an unskilled layperson with analogies to similarly unsafe practices.
If other plugs provide safe alternatives for the issues I’ve reiterated, shouldn’t we be looking at those plugs as safer alternatives?
Devial@discuss.online 1 day ago
I’m not being hostile, I just fail to understand how your point with multi phase standards has anything whatsoever to do with safety. Multiphase standards, and standard intercompatability are convenience issues, not safety issues, and therfore irrelevant to the discussion.
And other standards notably, explicitly do NOT include all those safety standards. For example, the ground pin on UK plugs is longer than the L and N, which A) can be used to place child safety shutters in every single outlet, that are lifted out of the way when the ground pin is inserted and B) in the same vein ensure that GND is always the first prong to make contact. The wiring of UK plugs also requires a some slack in the L and GND wires, so that if the cable is yankes so hard the wires tear out of the plug, L is always the first to go.
The internal fuse also allows you to safely use super thin gauge wiring on low power appliances, and allows you to create cheap, low power extension cords, that are still safe because they have a fuse in the plug (yes, in theory any country could do that, but resetable breakers are expensive, and replaceble fuses are inconvenient for the user, unless the contry already has a decades old standard surrounding them, and they’re already available for sale basically everywhere).
No. Not unless the current plug is outright dangerous. Rewriting an entire countries electric code, and introducing an entirely new type of plug, especially one which would be neither forward nor backward compatable with the old one, costs billions, and is a major nuisance for consumers in the transition phase. It’s simply not worth it, unless it’s necessary for fundamental safety.