British plugs are amazing

We compare US, EU & British electrical plug sockets & decide the British plug is the best in the world. Disagree? Let us know why...

The Unusable podcast is presented by Andrew Waite & David Ball, who discuss the importance of user experience (UX) in technology & the world around us, & talk about great design that just works - or moan about it when it doesn't. Listen to our latest podcast on Spotify, Google Podcasts & Apple Podcasts.

Links we referenced:

[josir]

When the only complain on a plug is being lego when stepped on, you know it's the best to go with

[siemdecleyn]

About EU-plugs:
Sockets are recessed to prevent touching.
Pins are insulated when the plug doesn't fully cover the recessed socket.

Shutters are there but they work a bit differently (you need to push both 'live' holes simultaneously).

This is for Belgium and designs do vary a bit inbetween countries.
Main differences are the design of the earth.
But these safety features are very common in all the places I visited and all plug designs can be used interchangeably.

[alexandrupitea]

The EU sockets are inset, so that works like shielding around the plugs. 👍

[Syaska]

I think you missed a very important one - the British plug is self orienting. Because it has a triangular orientation of the pins, there is only one very obvious way for the plug to go in. With American plugs, the difference between the two pins is quite subtle. I constantly have the "usb syndrome" of having to try it both ways around to figure out which way up it is supposed to be.

The downside of the British plug of course is the size. It's just larger and harder to fit many plugs in a power strip.

[davidpar]

You folks need fuses in your plugs because of the ring circuit wiring you use. In America, the plug configuration corresponds to the rating or voltage of the outlet, which corresponds to the rating of the circuit breaker protecting the circuit. Some of our plugs do have fuses—mostly on Christmas lights or small decorative items, such as night lights, as these are items prone to starting electrical fires.

Your previous electrical standard featured (at least) 6 non-compatible plugs with two and three pins. Then there were the non-standard and competing types. We had the same situation here

[BedsitBob]

There's no reason to leave a plug lying on the ground, because you don't need to remove it from the socket.

[JanoJ]

The fuse is NOT redundant at all, even where wiring is done ina star layout, instead of a "ring". Technically the fuse is there to protect the CORD running from the plug to the appliance. UK houses DID have fuses at the distribution center, but the fuses were made for the ring/spur. So for example a ring made of 30AMP cable, there woudl be a fuse on the board rated for that cable.

The fuse in the plug, is there to be sized to the CORD so for exmaple a floor light with a cord rated at 2A, woudl have a 2A fuse inside the plug)
If there was a fault in the lamp and it started to draw 10A, the mains supply would happily supply the current up to its fuse (20A, 30A or more) without blowing a fuse, or tripping the circuit breaker, as the House wiring can handle more tha 10A, however, the cord will eventually overheat and catch fire!

You are right about distributing the safety aspect. For example multi way extention cables. For example you may have two 3KW heaters, each with a 13A fuse on its own cord. IF you were to plug both into an extension cord that didnt have a fuse on its own plugyou could overload the cord on the extension, risking fire.

[WaynesElectrical]

Hiya. I had a good look through this video and you
more-or-less had it spot-on when comparing BS 1363
plugs to that of European (Schuko) plugs and the American
plugs. You missed one thing out though, and that
.
.
.
.






What this basically means, is that the plug can only go in the socket one way round. It physically cannot go into a socket any other way.

OK, in the USA, the 3-pin (or three-prong) plug is technically polarised, they also do have two-prong plugs and I do believe that these can go into a socket either way around.

It's the same with the Schuko. The Schuko plug can go into a socket either way. (unless connecting into a French socket, inside of which is a protruding pin for the Earth, thus polarising the plug and allowing one-way insertion only)

Why is polarisation important then?

It is particularly important on some appliances, because if there is a switch on the appliance and it disconnects the live connection only and the plug is not polarised, then if the plug is in the socket "the-wrong-way-around" then when the switch on the appliance is off, although the appliance won't work, all of the internal workings of the appliance are still live anyway!

On a table lamp with an Edison Screw bulb cap, this can be dangerous because once again, if the plug is in the socket
"the-wrong-way-around" and the switch only turns off the live connection, what can happen is, the large screw on the light bulb can actually be live, even with the lamp turned off !!

This is why Polarisation on plugs is important. The UK even had polarised plugs back in the round-pin BS 546 days!



*_DID YOU It is still acceptable to use
BS 546 plugs and sockets in domestic properties?

It generally isn't, but if there is a specialist need for
a different kind of plug and socket, BS 546 can be
used, and is still referenced in BS 7671. :D








Need more *PLUGS?*






What you need to do right now, is head-on over to *_Wayne's Electrical_* and dive into the *_PLUGS PLAYLIST_* and in there, you will find many plugs and sockets, including BS 1363, BS 546, BS 372 and even BS 4343, now known as BS EN 60309

Are there more PLUGS VIDEOS on their way?

As at the time of writing *YES!!*

What you need to do right now, is head-on over to *_Wayne's Electrical_* and
that subscribe button! Go on, DO IT. :D

While you're also there, take a good look around, as other electrical things are discussed also. Oh yes. :D

Thanxx for showing,

-Wayne's Electrical.

_19th December 2020, 23.30_

[bitter]

So us plugs as of 2013 have shutters on them, but the only open when the hot and neutral are inserted simultaneously

[strider]

The only plugs here in the USA that have fuses are Christmas lights. For the most part they don't have them.
I know some modern EU sockets have shutters.
Shutters actually are now standard. They're called Tamper Resistant Receptacles and have been standard since 2008. I found an old patent daring back to 1988 with that concept which unfortunately didn't catch on sooner. The only downside is that with North American plugs the blades get bent very easily. Especially with old plugs that get used a lot like extension leads. The problem with this is that they can't engage the shutters properly.
Many people actually hate those because 1 of 3 problems happen.
1. It won't go in without excess force
2. It won't unplug easily without pulling too hard which is bad since you don't wanna risk yanking the socket out of the wall.
3. Plugs won't go in at all
Some will work fine.

I can assume most people would just replace them with regular sockets that don't have shutters which is obviously more dangerous.

The shutters themselves can be potentially bypassed. I figured that out myself when messing around with a TRR. If you were to slowly pull the plug out and leave only the live blade in by moving it right at an angle you can actually leave the shutter on the neutral terminal open. So you could just stick some object in there to keep them open.

I have an MK Logic Plus socket (really good UK company with a genius 3 pin shutter system) which I want to figure out how to wire here in the states where I tried that. It's impossible. UK shutters can't be bypassed like that. I guess only advantage of USA shutters is that the only way to bypass them is if you were actively trying though I assume doing it on accident is possible.

Unfortunately none of our plugs are sleeved. The only North American type plug I've ever seen wish sleeving was some extension lead sold on Amazon Japan (since they use the same plugs as us with a few weird difference.)

True story, I was messing around with an old laptop when I plugged in the power supply into an extension lead. I tried shoving the plug in but the damn thing wouldn't go in all the way. It was just sticking out. So I had to be careful not to move my toes too close which thankfully didn't happen.

Look up TikTok penny challenge and you'll see that our sockets are far from idiot proof.

Also EU plugs actually do have sleeving with the exception of French plugs or the famous German Schuko plug.

Unfortunately we don't have the wiring failsafe. Huge fail for us.

Then of course you can't forget the sparks...
If you've lived here long enough you know exactly what I'm talking about. Seriously, I can't tell you how many times I've plugged something in and saw sparks fly out.

As for the last point? If you were to leave a phone charger upside down where the blades are facing up, if you were to step on it hard enough it would screw up your foot pretty good. I've seen it happen before.

But yeah I hate our plugs. They've been the standard since 1915 and haven't been replaced. I honestly wish we adopted BS1363 sockets as the standard here. If there are enough electrical nerds out there who like this design maybe we could try and figure out how to retrofit American houses to take those because we deserve so much better.

[jackhewitt]

As I understand it the us the only time you find a fuse in the us plug is if it's used on christmas lights.

[hadesdogs]

Not only the plug but even the bloody sockets have fuses 🤣😂

[hadesdogs]

A 2015 study showed that each year on average there are more than 51, 000 electrical house fires per year

[hicobra]

EU updated it's plug to have insulation on the prongs the same time they did the ban on incandescent light bulbs
Also US plugs can have a fuse electrical devices that are used in or around water have them.

It looks like most of the safety features of the UK plug are getting copied all over the world slowly (So if the was ever to be one standard the UK plug would be the top contender)

As for the comment "No other plug has a fuse, because they got reasonable fusing in their routing system already. It's funny how the Brits make this cheap poverty stopgap into a huge safety feature"
we in the uk have two points of controlled failure the plug fuse & the home circuit breaker or fuse box if one fails the 2nd one nominally gets it & if the two fail then the one in the
substation will get it but then the is a blackout in the last 8 years at my home I've only had two blackouts and one of them was a cat so how meny blackouts have you had on your
one point of controlled failure.

[abuladula]

This is why as a British person when you use an electrical plug & socket when your travelling to other countries, you get that feeling, that they are not a fully developed nation yet.

[davestewart]

Totally plug unrelated... When you were talking about sprinklers only going off when they get hot, and that movies are wrong when they show them all going off together.
Actually what happens (I think) is when one sprinkler "fuses" (blows) the resulting drop in water pressure sets the system on active and the whole system is pressurised to quite a few bar, thus smashing all the other glass vials and consequently all the sprinklers coming on.
That is my understanding of the process..

[ffm]

It's more comparable to the BS 4573 UK shaver plug.

[mman]

Hurts like she's stepping on a American plug and also if it is in enough to have an electrical connection you can't get your finger in there with a American plug

[hadesdogs]

No no noo this sounds stupid but it’s really important considering how many are killed via electrocutions or house fires or having their items blow up because they put the plug in the wrong way round

[johnmarsh]

What is the relevance of the lack of copper after the war? And modern American plugs either have an earth pin or different sized live and neutral pins to ensure they are inserted correctly.