HN

Comments (34)

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  thelastgallon
  Tangentially related:There are currently 15 types of domestic electrical outlet plugs in use worldwide, each of which has been assigned a letter by the US Department of Commerce International Trade Administration (ITA), starting with A and moving through the alphabet. These letters are completely arbitrary: they don't actually mandate anything -- https://www.worldstandards.eu/electricity/plugs-and-sockets/How Japan Made Their Outlet Safe: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tqClY6PDCW0
• ElijahLynn
  Grateful to the human who built this and finds it interesting enough to keep at it. A valuable resource indeed, available to all of humanity! Well done!
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  stephen_g
  The Australian examples are very odd - the pictures of our general purpose outlets are normal (figures 1 and 3 when you click on Australia), but most of the rest is unusual and either fairly or very rare.For example the plug shown on the main page is very non-typical - it's a re-wireable one which you very rarely see (because it's generally only if a plug has been damaged and had to be replaced) - almost all the plugs normal people will ever use in Australia will actually be fully moulded.Secondly it's right-angle, which is not incredibly rare but not the default - normally you'd only see that on some power-boards (what the US I think calls 'power strips') or some extension cables. Appliances usually have straight plugs, the right angle one you do see on them sometimes but not as much (maybe 5-10%).When you click in to the Australia page, the back side of the plug is also shown as piggy-back which is also quite rare (usually only on extension cords - such as in figure 10, that one is fairly normal).Figures 5, 6, 7 and 8 and 9 are also things you'll almost never see (it does say in the case of figure 9 that a rewirable piggy-back as shown is now disallowed by our wiring standards).Some of the example pictures would be better to be changed to something more normal, and the detailed page could probably be broken up into typical, specialist and rare/obsolete sections because it's confusing having it all together.
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  micw
  Almost always when I'm in a country that does not have European (CEE) plugs and sockets, I feel uncomfortable. All CEE combinations have very solid touch protection. It's almost impossible to touch a metal pin of a plug when it's so close to the socket that it might have contact. When I the see the "flat" style sockets plus the full-metal pins I wonder if it's just a bad feeling or if way more people gets accidentally electrocuted with that kind of plugs/socket than with our CEE types.
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  dvh
  I was thinking about this and came to conclusion that the only correct type is UK style socket because it has fuse.In our houses, there are circuit breakers. They don't protect you or devices, they can only protect wires in the wall, those who installed the wires knew how much current they can take and installed appropriate circuit breakers.When you plug the plug in the wall socket, the circuit breaker has no idea what you plugged in so it cannot protect it, so there has to be a fuse in the plug, like in the UK plug. Whoever chose the wires for this device choose appropriate fuse.There is one more case possible, the wire is not permanently attached to the device but via another socket, for example C14 socket like in PC. In that case manufacturer of the PC should know what kind of currents it is capable of handling and should put fuse inside it.Now everything is protected (at least for over-current, if you touch live and neutral with two hands, 30mA through heart is enough to kill you but that's something that cannot be avoided, not even GFCI can do it).
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  dabber21
  I also want ceiling sockets :( https://plugsocketmuseum.nl/LampSockets1.html
• shmerl
  UK one is so massive.
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  tariky
  This website is beautiful. I wish I have skill to craft something like this.
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  deltamidway
  My man! I love these sorts of sites.
• gib444
  The Danish sockets are a happy smiley face! That's so cutehttps://plugsocketmuseum.nl/DK/DK_socket_standard.jpgThis one looks a bit hungover though LOLhttps://plugsocketmuseum.nl/DK/DK_connector-2pole.jpg
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  jmague
  back to web 1.0! Nice anyway :)
• GauntletWizard
  As someone who lives in an RV and has done some marine electrical, I was disappointed to see zero mention of those uses. North America uses NEMA 6-50, NEMA 14-50, NEMA L6-30 and L17-30 for RV and marine uses.
• HPsquared
  iPod 30-pin is a classic.