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Registered Member #188
Joined: Thu Feb 16 2006, 05:18PM
Location:
Posts: 67
Uh yeah, i recently came across a US mains plug and im still wondering how this flimsy thing could withstand 20A continious... The contacts look like folded metal sheet and the round contact is rolled sheet, wow.Looks cheap and uh well, looks like it even doesnt offer any protection against touching the contacts from the side when half-plugged in...
That is because im used to our CEE7/7 plugs which even though rated for 16A look much more solidly (solid brass contacts 4.5mm in diameter) and even these get hot at 16A cont.
I had a _cheap_ plug strip with 16A/3600W rating melt and start to burn with around 10A load after some hours, because the cintacts were made of exceedingly thin corroded bare steel.No wonder this happened... Thats why a CE mark doesnt say anything about the stuff being even remotely safe, the price says a lot more (bought a new one for 8x the price and got good quality, individual sockets in a plastic casing wired with thick and even isolated wire.Nickel plated CuBe (or phosphor bronze maybe, at least very springy material) contacts that dont get warm at 10A after hours.)
Plugging/unplugging heavy loads usually works, just over time the tips of the contacts get a little burned but is fine usually. Thats again, for CEE7/7 plugs and not for the flimsy US plugs which id rather not like to use...
Registered Member #175
Joined: Tue Feb 14 2006, 09:32PM
Location: Sudbury, ON
Posts: 111
robert wrote ...
Looks cheap and uh well, looks like it even doesnt offer any protection against touching the contacts from the side when half-plugged in...
"US Style" Plugs, used across the Americas, do not, in fact, offer any such protection. One learns very quickly to be careful grabbing them when half-plugged in.
Registered Member #53
Joined: Thu Feb 09 2006, 04:31AM
Location: Ontario, Canada
Posts: 638
In the ontario electrical code recomends that the gound hole on an "american style" socket be up incase anything lands on the pins but it doesn't say anything about fingers touching pins when its half plugged in. As for current capacity, the "smiley face" plugs and sockets are for 15 amps or less. A 20amp socket has a T shaped hole on the hot side, according to code. In practice I have found many plugs and sockets rated for 15amps become hot at even at 10amps.
Registered Member #397
Joined: Wed Apr 19 2006, 12:56AM
Location: Western Washington
Posts: 125
robert wrote ...
Uh yeah, i recently came across a US mains plug and im still wondering how this flimsy thing could withstand 20A continious... The contacts look like folded metal sheet and the round contact is rolled sheet, wow.Looks cheap and uh well, looks like it even doesnt offer any protection against touching the contacts from the side when half-plugged in...
Cheap male plugs are made cheaply, and fit the description above. Most normal plugs don't look like that unless they're $1.99 lamps from Walmart or something of questionable nature. Likewise, I'm sure the device that you saw with that design wasn't drawing 2400W on those contacts. Nothing like that would get a UL or CE stamp.
Registered Member #50
Joined: Thu Feb 09 2006, 04:07AM
Location: Vernon, B.C, Canada
Posts: 324
I always see the "$1.99" power bars at walmart and am so tempted to buy one after looking at its $30 equivilent, but in the end always thwarted off by mental images of my house on fire, all for a bargain...
Registered Member #316
Joined: Mon Mar 13 2006, 01:30PM
Location: Marietta, GA
Posts: 212
Coyote Wilde wrote ...
robert wrote ...
Looks cheap and uh well, looks like it even doesnt offer any protection against touching the contacts from the side when half-plugged in...
"US Style" Plugs, used across the Americas, do not, in fact, offer any such protection. One learns very quickly to be careful grabbing them when half-plugged in.
And let's not forget the satanic "polarized" plug where one male contact is larger than the other, allowing you to get it stuck flipped around with just the tips in the plug making contact so you get your fingers zapped when you pull it out and put it in right
Registered Member #30
Joined: Fri Feb 03 2006, 10:52AM
Location: Glasgow, Scotland
Posts: 6706
We laugh at American plugs with their bendy flat pins. UK mains plugs have rectangular pins made of solid brass that are total overkill for the 13A rating, and a fuse inside the plug top. You're meant to put in a 2, 3, 5, or 13 amp fuse according to how much the appliance draws. But if you buy a plug it comes with a 13A fuse, and nobody ever bothers replacing it for the proper sized one.
All this is pretty much academic now. EU regulations force all appliances to come with plugs already fitted, so you practically never have to fit one. And now that home wiring distribution boards use circuit breakers instead of fuses, the plug fuses never blow no matter what size you fit.
The only advantage of US plugs is that they don't hurt so much when you tread on one in your bare feet.
Registered Member #63
Joined: Thu Feb 09 2006, 06:18AM
Location:
Posts: 1425
nik282000 wrote ...
In the ontario electrical code recomends that the gound hole on an "american style" socket be up incase anything lands on the pins but it doesn't say anything about fingers touching pins when its half plugged in. As for current capacity, the "smiley face" plugs and sockets are for 15 amps or less. A 20amp socket has a T shaped hole on the hot side, according to code. In practice I have found many plugs and sockets rated for 15amps become hot at even at 10amps.
One thing about the US though is that you don't get so much of an arsebelting when you grab a 'half plugged in' plug -- you only cop 120V.
Elsewhere, the 240V knocks you around a bit, heee. Legislation now forces all new Australian appliances to be made with stupid little sleeves on the active/neutral so you can't cane yourself upon sliding a knife down the socket...
...They also prevent the plugs from seating properly in any chinese-made receptacles. :-/
Registered Member #188
Joined: Thu Feb 16 2006, 05:18PM
Location:
Posts: 67
The US plug came with a large photocopier that was shipped with the wrong cable for some reason.The copier does draw a lot of current, having a 2kW rating (however that would only flow during warmup time which isnt very long).Also the cable looks rather thin, not like something that can withstand 20A well.
Photo:Left: "our" standard plugs, middle the named US one and on the right a 3-phase plug (also comes in 32, 64, 125 and even 250A versions...).
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Why you shouldn't buy cheap plug strips
