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From: Peter D. on 14 Oct 2007 09:31 on Saturday 13 October 2007 09:38 in the Usenet newsgroup alt.os.linux.mandrake Robert M. Riches Jr. wrote: > On 2007-10-12, Moe Trin <ibuprofin(a)painkiller.example.tld> wrote: >> On Fri, 12 Oct 2007, in the Usenet newsgroup alt.os.linux.mandrake, in >> article [snip] > The USA 220V plugs with the rotated prongs are a _whole_ lot > more recent than the 1950s. The 5-6KW generator I bought in > the USA in 1996 or 1997 has two sockets that fit 110V plugs > like > > | | - | > . or . > (15A, 110V) (20A, 110V) > > and two sockets that fit 220V plugs like > > > | - - - > . or . > (15A, 220V) (20A, 220V) So, if you hacksaw the round pin off will a plug fit the wrong socket? - | versus | - ? [snip] > I think I recall reading documentation that the rotation of > the left prong (with ground down) tells the current: > vertical for 15A, horizontal for 20A; while the rotation of > the right plug tells the voltage: vertical for 110V, > horizontal for 220V. Interesting idea, but there is no problem putting a 15A load on a 20A source. That would be solving a problem that does not exist. -- sig goes here... Peter D.
From: Moe Trin on 14 Oct 2007 16:52 On Sun, 14 Oct 2007, in the Usenet newsgroup alt.os.linux.mandrake, in article <pth9u4-2e1.ln1(a)psd.news.gnode.com.au>, Peter D. wrote: >Moe Trin wrote: >> Up = on has been the convention here for over 100 years. > >That was half a joke. It is purely cultural, like driving on >the wrong side of the road. ;-) There is no logical reason >to chose one convention over its opposite, but it does pay to >copy your neighbors. I was given to understand that the right/wrong side of the road issue evolved from being able to use the sword/lance/ax with the (normally dominant) right hand while controlling your horse/camel/what-ever with the left. The shift from drive-on-the-left was due to larger vehicles where the driver was riding one of the horses and wanted the right hand for the whip. >Electricity traveled around the world pretty quickly. Most >related conventions are about the same age. and a lot of the conventions brought to what were then the colonies by the mother countries. >>In fact, none of the light switches in my house have such levers. >Heretic! In times past you would have been in danger of being >dragged before the House un-American committee. Actually, the switches are standard units which while still toggle switches are actuated by pressing a plate on the top (on) or bottom (off), except for the "three way" switches (where two or more switches control the same light), and rotary style dimmers (which may have a switch actuated by pressing the knob). >>>I assume that you have different plugs that will not fit into the >>>wrong socket. > >I was seriously expecting no answer, or a simple "yes". > >> Please engage brain - we have lawyers here who would be happy to >> litigate if anyone were so incredibly stupid as to use plugs that >> could be mis-matched. There's the key - we have a large surplus of lawyers, and no matter what we do, we can't get rid them easily. Would you like a few? The economy sized package contains 100 thousand. >Two pin? So an non-polarised plug fit a polarised socket? Yes, and that's _relatively_ common. The "rules" allow non-polarized plugs on objects that have two independent layers of insulation between the wire and the user. An example of this is the common light duty electric drill where the drill body is nylon and the bit is isolated from the motor - usually a nylon gearset. Low energy wall-warts may also be non-polarized. The fun comes in when you have a three pin (NEMA 5-15P) plug and a 2 pin sockets. There are adapters you can buy that have a 3 pin socket and 2 pin plug (with a separate ground wire or tab you are meant to attach to the screw that is used to attach the cover to the receptacle), and NORMALLY the two pin plug is polarized. But if that doesn't fit, a file will "fix" the oversized pin. Yes, some idiots cure the problem ground pin with a saw. >We sometimes get a variety of plugs and leads supplied with new >electrical equipment. Very common. We had a situation where Sun Microsystems supplied the wrong "country kit" box with a batch of Sparc Station computers. The computer power supply handles 100-240 VAC at 47-63 Hertz, but the power cord is "different". Sun offers eight different ones. >Technically there are two different sockets. 10 Amps is standard, >the (rare) 15 Amp socket has a thicker earth pin and will accept >10A and 15A plugs. and still make reliable contact with the ground pin? Our 20 Amp 110V sockets have a 'tee' shaped return pin, which will accept the parallel pin 15 amp plug as well as the - | (and rare) 20 amp plug. >I think that we have finally settled on the world standard of 230 >Volts for 50 Hz supplies, it was 240 Volts in Victoria, Australia. 230 is the EU standard as well, though some countries achieve this standard by redefining the tolerances on their former national standard. Assume that to be the "nominal" voltage. Here, people speak of "110", "115", "117", "120", and "125", but they're all the same supply. The official standard is 120 V with a five percent tolerance (ANSI C84.1-1970), but some entities have a tighter tolerance (example, California +0/-5 percent) though in practice I'm not sure they are followed exactly (when I was living in California, the supply was generally 122-125 VAC). >There is a high power 3 phase 415 Volt connector, but you don't see >them in homes. We have the two supply voltages because of the difference in load capability. The dividing line is about 2.5 KW. >A half inch x 1/8" x 1 3/16"? Yup! Big sucker. The connector is a bit over two inch in diameter. >> I suspect most people would have difficulty inserting a 120 volt >> plug into a 220 volt socket. > >Don't underestimate what can be achieved with simple tools, brute >force and stupidity. For the stuff you find in a US residence, not very likely, as the pins are spaced much further apart. There is (as noted else-thread) a 15 Amp 220 volt connector, but these are rarely found in residential or even light industry. If you need 220, you normally need lots of it which means the larger connectors. When you talk industry, there is a wider choice of connectors, based on higher amperage, the number of phases, and whether the connectors are meant to lock together. Again because of the lawyer surplus, they don't inter-mate even if you use lots of force. Are you sure you don't need a few thousand? >They are very different. Round pins, flat pins, thick pins, thin >pins, various spacings and orientations. The good thing about standards is that there are so many to choose from." -- Andrew S. Tanenbaum Old guy
From: Peter D. on 15 Oct 2007 02:23 on Monday 15 October 2007 06:52 in the Usenet newsgroup alt.os.linux.mandrake Moe Trin wrote: > On Sun, 14 Oct 2007, in the Usenet newsgroup alt.os.linux.mandrake, in > article <pth9u4-2e1.ln1(a)psd.news.gnode.com.au>, Peter D. wrote: > >>Moe Trin wrote: > >>> Up = on has been the convention here for over 100 years. >> >>That was half a joke. It is purely cultural, like driving on >>the wrong side of the road. ;-) There is no logical reason >>to chose one convention over its opposite, but it does pay to >>copy your neighbors. > > I was given to understand that the right/wrong side of the road issue > evolved from being able to use the sword/lance/ax with the (normally > dominant) right hand while controlling your horse/camel/what-ever with > the left. The shift from drive-on-the-left was due to larger vehicles > where the driver was riding one of the horses and wanted the right hand > for the whip. The story is long and complicated with not quite enough evidence to finally answer the question. The origins probably involve; right hand dominance, swords, whips, one horse wagons, two horse wagons, and other historical quirks that I am unaware of. As far as I know none of the above are still relevant. My favorite explanation (with no evidence) is that it is a christian thing to travel on the left, because of a decree by pope Boniface (number what?) about pilgrims traveling to and from Rome. The irreligious like Napoleon and his successors do as they please. [snip] >>Two pin? So an non-polarised plug fit a polarised socket? > > Yes, and that's _relatively_ common. The "rules" allow non-polarized > plugs on objects that have two independent layers of insulation > between the wire and the user. An example of this is the common > light duty electric drill where the drill body is nylon and the bit > is isolated from the motor - usually a nylon gearset. Low energy > wall-warts may also be non-polarized. The fun comes in when you > have a three pin (NEMA 5-15P) plug and a 2 pin sockets. Hence the "need" to saw of the earth pin! Let the excitement begin! > There are > adapters you can buy that have a 3 pin socket and 2 pin plug (with > a separate ground wire or tab you are meant to attach to the screw > that is used to attach the cover to the receptacle), and NORMALLY > the two pin plug is polarized. But if that doesn't fit, a file > will "fix" the oversized pin. Yes, some idiots cure the problem > ground pin with a saw. I can't say that I am shocked. Were they? >:-> >>We sometimes get a variety of plugs and leads supplied with new >>electrical equipment. > > Very common. We had a situation where Sun Microsystems supplied the > wrong "country kit" box with a batch of Sparc Station computers. > The computer power supply handles 100-240 VAC at 47-63 Hertz, but > the power cord is "different". Sun offers eight different ones. > >>Technically there are two different sockets. 10 Amps is standard, >>the (rare) 15 Amp socket has a thicker earth pin and will accept >>10A and 15A plugs. > > and still make reliable contact with the ground pin? It is just a matter of having an adequate spring in the socket. I don't have any 15 Amp connectors to look at. It might be the width of the earth pin that changes rather than the thickness. > Our 20 Amp > 110V sockets have a 'tee' shaped return pin, which will accept the > parallel pin 15 amp plug as well as the - | (and rare) 20 amp plug. > >>I think that we have finally settled on the world standard of 230 >>Volts for 50 Hz supplies, it was 240 Volts in Victoria, Australia. > > 230 is the EU standard as well, though some countries achieve this > standard by redefining the tolerances on their former national standard. [snip] Over the last few decades there has been a deliberate multi stage strategy to loosen tolerances from 220V and 240V towards 230V, rename things 230V (with asymmetric tolerances), and finally tighten the tolerances around 230V. -- sig goes here... Peter D.
From: Robert M. Riches Jr. on 15 Oct 2007 14:01 On 2007-10-14, Peter D. <psd(a)live.home.invalid> wrote: > on Saturday 13 October 2007 09:38 > in the Usenet newsgroup alt.os.linux.mandrake > Robert M. Riches Jr. wrote: > >> On 2007-10-12, Moe Trin <ibuprofin(a)painkiller.example.tld> wrote: >>> On Fri, 12 Oct 2007, in the Usenet newsgroup alt.os.linux.mandrake, in >>> article > [snip] >> The USA 220V plugs with the rotated prongs are a _whole_ lot >> more recent than the 1950s. The 5-6KW generator I bought in >> the USA in 1996 or 1997 has two sockets that fit 110V plugs >> like >> >> | | - | >> . or . >> (15A, 110V) (20A, 110V) >> >> and two sockets that fit 220V plugs like >> >> >> | - - - >> . or . >> (15A, 220V) (20A, 220V) > > So, if you hacksaw the round pin off will a plug fit > the wrong socket? - | versus | - ? If someone were foolish enough to saw off the ground pin, they could reverse a plug and get unpleasant results. > [snip] >> I think I recall reading documentation that the rotation of >> the left prong (with ground down) tells the current: >> vertical for 15A, horizontal for 20A; while the rotation of >> the right plug tells the voltage: vertical for 110V, >> horizontal for 220V. > > Interesting idea, but there is no problem putting a 15A load on > a 20A source. That would be solving a problem that does not > exist. There wouldn't be a functional problem. As has been discussed, the 20A outlets have a T-shaped hole that will accept either a 15A plug or a 20A plug. -- Robert Riches spamtrap42(a)verizon.net (Yes, that is one of my email addresses.)
From: William Bagwell on 15 Oct 2007 19:52
On Mon, 15 Oct 2007 16:23:54 +1000, "Peter D." > wrote: >snip >Over the last few decades there has been a deliberate multi stage >strategy to loosen tolerances from 220V and 240V towards 230V, >rename things 230V (with asymmetric tolerances), and finally >tighten the tolerances around 230V. Yeah. 230... 231, whatever it takes. :) Have waited *years* to use that quote. -- William |