The US does NOT have a 110-120 volt standard. It is 220-240 volts. Our 110-120 comes from dividing the incoming power from two halves of the generating/transformer systems. Many of our devices, especially items like ovens, dryers, large motors, etc. use the full 220-240 volts.
The US standard household outlets generally are 110 to 125 vac, the higher loads ranges from 208 to 240 vac most motors will run with in this range. Many industrial motors run on 3 phase 480 vac with industrial lighting on 277 vac
Voltage standards are described by two voltages and a frequency. The first voltage given is live to neutral, the second voltage is live to live. Described that way the US have a 110V/220V 60Hz electrical system. The odd thing about the American system is, that is uses two phases that are at a 180° phase angle towards each other and a „delta high“ third phase that doesn‘t have a constant angle (and thus not a constant voltage) towards the other two phases. Which is a bitch when it comes to configuring things like three phase motors. In order to run smoothly, these require three phases that are at a 120° angle towards each other.
Westinghouse built his first Niagara Falls station to run on 25Hz in 1895. The change over to 60Hz wasn't complete until 1948.And even after that date local steel mills had large motors (Usually MG sets) that ran on 25Hz
In the early days those who wanted motors wanted a low frequency like 25 Hz but those who who wanted lights wanted a high frequency like 133 Hz. The 50 and 60 Hz frequencies are a compromise between those.Tesla chose 60 Hz for his motor and Westinghouse or could not make it work at 133 Hz so 60 Hz became the norm in the US. In Germany Dolivo-Dobrovolsky who invented the modern three phase induction motor first used 40 Hz but as that made light flicker he raised it to 50 Hz.
It's not addressed in the video, but the main reason for no international standard is each plug (and the systems behind them) were developed locally by different people for different reasons. Would you want to plug in a 120 volt appliance (easily) to a 240 volt connection in the days before we had self-regulating power supplies? 100+ years ago, that was the thinking. It's also the reason that NEMA has standards to prevent 20 amp appliances on 15 amp circuits and using your vacuum cleaner on a dryer outlet, although these days safety plays a huge part. Fun facts here.... the north American standard home outlet is also used in Canada and all of the Caribbean Island countries. That's a major part of the world. Many of those island countries still operate on the old US standard power of 105 volts, but 50 Hz instead of 60 Hz. I feel there must be a connection to the 50 Hz from British influence, because many were under British rule till 50 years ago. (Jamaica, Virgin Islands, etc) BTW, the USA has well over a dozen different plug standards, but the average homeowner never sees them because most are industrial in nature.
@@azeemtics6613 Yes, it is now in certain locations but away from the tourist areas and 20-30 years ago you'd be lucky if it was over 100 volts. They are slowly catching up to modern ways.
The rivalry was between Edison and Westinghouse. Tesla was a minor operator. The rivalry lasted just a few years until J.P. Morgan fired Edison. The 220 V system was adopted in Europe quite late, in many cases in the 1950s or even later. For long in many countries there were different voltages as each company decided it independently. In Finland it was the cities that used lower voltage whereas rural areas with longer distances uses higher voltage.
The UK "standard 13A plug" and socket have much to commend them. The electricity supply is 240vAC, which would be dangerous without adequate safety features. Sockets have internal shutters over the live and neutral connnectons to prevent accidental contact. The live and neutral pins of the plug are part-insulated and distinctly shorter overall than the earth pin. When the plug is inserted far enough, the earth pin moves the shutter in the socket aside, to permit the live and neutral pins to enter. By this time, only the insulated parts of the live and neutral pin are exposed. In addition to this, the "13A plug" incorporates a cartridge fuse, with a rating selected to protect the appliance and its cable in the case of a fault. Most sockets have a switch preventing current flow until switched on. There are other safety standards including wire gauge, insulation, and cable grips that enhance the safety of the UK standard plug and socket
Everyone in the UK seems to think the rest of the world is stuck in the 1960s. The US receptacles also have safety shutters. There’s no need for fuses in most plugs, because the breaker in the panel matches the wiring in both the walls and the appliance. To make up for the slightly exposed pins as you plug devices in, American GFCI breakers are 6mA trip unlike the 30mA trip of British RCD breakers.
@@rpvitiello the fuse in the plug is mandatory due to Ring wiring because they are too cheap on copper. I've seen some British people are concerned and mad when someone plugs in the EU phone chargers in their socket that it will start a house fire. Well, if an appliance used as 0.3 A can start a house fire, it means the wiring is shi**y unsafe.
@@DangerWrap exactly! Brit’s think cuz they have “the best” plug/ socket their whole system is the best. They need those over engineered plugs to make up for the awful building wiring.
I think UK plug is created by cultural behavior of UK people itself, colder UK climate make alcohol consumption pretty high, due to dangerous of electricity, non sober people can easily make mistake when wrongly inserted the plug, so there are shutter that can only opened by grounding head and switch to ensure it's very safety. meanwhile in US, two clumsy blade, no insulated at the blade, no grounding, really a nation for brave people 😅
@@caezaryo There is no such thing as polarity in AC, if your appliances breaks due to not "Plugged in the correct way" it means that appliances is a garbage quality. There are several types of shutter in different types. And the last thing is they're cheap on copper because after WW2, their colonies got independence, no more freebies resources. I agree that NEMA is the worst and most unsafe design in the world. I see many Americans complain that something falls between the prongs, sparks and burning. Because there's no insulation, pit style outlet.
This video DID NOT talk about why other countries relied on 50Hz over 60Hz. It said nothing about specifically WHY countries have their own standards in terms of specific needs.
I was also gonna mention, the biggest "bruh" moment is that, due to the unique circumstance in which its power grid developed, Japan is a _dual hertz_ nation, half at 50Hz and half at 60Hz! And you have to be really careful which prefecture you buy appliances in, because if you use it in one that it's not designed for (or you didn't spring for the fancy model that can accept both)... boom goes the weasel.
Still a lot more accurate than what the UK teaches its citizens about its own history... 😉 (Evidence: There's something that's not OK the British did in the 1700s that all the Spanish know very well about. A British person only chances across it if they visit one of Alicantes' castles and finds that _very revealing_ exhibition in the curtain wall... 🏰💣🤔)
Good point. They skipped over the "flat vs. Vertical" prong controversy in 1930 USA. They also skipped over 15 vs 20 amp prongs. Why does the UK use round plugs? The painted base of the plug is understandable. Yes, UK wiring is very, very different from what little I understand. It is a loop circuit instead of a, slightly more wasteful, tree and branch design. Grounds were not part of the American code till the 1960's(?)
@@allenshepard7992 > _Why does the UK use round plugs?_ Erm...Unless you're referring to BS-536 (Shaver outlets limited to 200mA, found only in bathrooms) you might want to update yourself on what UK plugs look like _now._ We've been using a design with *rectangular* pins and mandatory fuses since at least the 1950s! 😇 The reason why we use loop circuits (And why we have to have a fuse in every plug) is grounded (Heh! 🙃) in copper shortages in tandem with our _massive_ rebuilding programme after WWII - We didn't have enough available to lay the same spur circuits used in most other countries, and „rings“ allow cable to be (theoretically) spec'd at half maximum load as current flow to a load will traverse _both_ sides of the ring. ⚡🔁⚡ Granted this means more jolt for less copper - Admittedly., most ring circuits now have 40A cable throughout - But regrettably comes with considerable safety risks, particularly that any one outlet is fed by _two_ separate current paths, and dangerous faults can go unnoticed without regular testing. 🎰
Most of the world, including the US, uses a 220 - 240 volt standard. The US uses a center tapped power line transformer feeding the home, where half the voltage due to the center tap is used at lower power outlets (1,800 watts). Most of the differences between countries has to do with the standard home outlet. I don't expect these outlet differences to change to a universal, worldwide standard, as each country believes their outlet standard is the best.
Yeah, I'm only a third of the way through watching this video, and the LLM like narration has completely skipped over a bunch of important historical and technical details... which are _specifically the topic of this video_ The earliest outlets were Edision light bulb sockets... because for the first thirty years of commercial electric service in the United States, the only electric devices people had were incandescent light bulbs, and either DC motors, or three-phase AC motors... which determined whether or not you would use the Edison or Westinghouse system. The NEMA two blade outlet was a random commercial product somebody was selling in the 1920, which would screw into an (Edison) screw lamp base socket, so that it was much easier to disconnect your toaster or whatever, than needing to unscrew it from the outlet all the time. (Especially if you have more than one device, but only one lamp socket, and constantly need to swap them.) There were several other physical form factors for plugs and outlets in the US and in Europe. The ones that survived until the 1950's are basically the "standard" ones we have now. (Except Italy had another one through the 1960's that eventually was abandonded for the German Schuko standard.)
Both UK and Ireland changed plug/standard following WW2. As the revised UK wiring regulations allow looped sockets to reduce the amount of copper needed, however this neccesitated adding fusses to plugs, so to reduce confusion (for safety reasons), a new plug/socket shape was used.
That lack of copper was also the main driver behind using 220-240volts. Much of Europe needed their infrastructure rebuilt following WWII and the same copper scarcity that led to the UK adopting high amperage ring circuits with fused plugs made the higher voltage a necessary choice, despite it's safety risks and (at the time) shortcomings due to the much shorter lifespan of incandescent bulbs. With modern protections though the higher voltage doesn't matter as much, but it still is more dangerous. The UK plug is probably the best one out there. As an American, our plug design may have been first, but man is it lacking in many regards.
@@jblyon2the many issues in the USA are super cheap sockets that wear out easily, and lack of plastic on the prongs so there’s no exposed metal as you plug things in. Other than that the USA has added most safety features to the sockets.
@@anonamouse5917 the world would be better off switching to type N plug/socket, which were designed to be safe and compact. The UK plugs are absolutely ridiculous in the modern world where the plug is bigger than the device it’s attached too. Just build the protection into the building.
@@anonamouse5917 ring circuits use wire that’s 1/2 the size needed to carry the power, and instead relies on power coming from both directions of the ring. It saves copper, at the expense of safety, cuz now each wire is 1/2 the size it should be for the breaker protecting the circuit. If anything goes wrong the building wire can literally catch fire without tripping the breaker meant to prevent that from happening. That’s why they fuse everything at the plug to reduce the risk of that happening. It’s an utterly absurd system that’s illegal in most of the world, because it relies on nothing going wrong to be safe just to save some copper. Other systems are designed to be safe even if something goes wrong.
This is the FIRST UA-cam video that I have ever given a thumbs down. Why? Because it didn't address the subject of its title. Sure it covers a lot about different voltages in various countries but NOTHING about the physical plugs and sockets: 'electric outlets'. I've learn't far more on the title subject from reading all the brilliant responses, below :-) On the local front...We here in Australia initially used 40Hz in some small areas, later changed to 50Hz. As recently as the 1970s the East Perth power station still had a huge 40Hz steam turbine alternator, feeding a 40Hz - 50Hz motor-generator set in an adjacent building. Whilst Australia has never had 110-120v nor 60Hz, the standard Australian domestic three-pin plug was adapted from a US Hubbell design (now a NEMA something-or-other). And on the subject of trivia some South American countries use this same 'Aussie' plug but wire the active and neutral the opposite way around. Go figure.
Another Aussie. China has a similar socket to Australia but it's upside down. Some might argue that it is Australia(being down under) who got the socket upside-down New Zealand shares the Aussie Socket
The house I was born in ha round pin sockets of3 sizes : 3 amp 5 amp and 15 amp. All on 240 Vdc. And fed on a radial system in turn fed from a local generating station. A nearby town, leek in Staffordshire was on dc and the whole town ran on batteries from Friday evening until Monday morning ! When I was 10 we moved into a new house with the current uk 3 flat pins on a 32 amp ring circuit. Each plug has its own fuse according to what it is feeding. Until recently there were many places with the round pins but on ac as the grid system. So the uk did in fact change from one system to another but over a 30 year period. There were of course many strange adaptors about. I have a collection and it is possible to have over 20 outlets from 1 13 amp socket ! The cross channel links are dc because of the difficulty in synchronising the uk with Europe. Also h do is less lossy.
The UK has changed plug designs several times. The BS546 was adopted in the 1930 replacing the old ones. In the rest of Europe the changes have been more gradual where existing sockets were changed like by adding grounding. In the UK people were expected to wire their plugs. In Finland at the same time that was banned. They did not want people to change ungrouned plugs to fit grounded sockets. Their efforts to prevent people from changing or modifying the plugs failed miserably. Almost everyone did that in the 1970s until double insulation made it unnecessary.
YES, there is an actual international (IEC) standard for this. it's used in brazil (in minimally customized form). the history of the brasilian socket change is quite interesting because the mixture of old designs had to be completely scrapped
I just think little of it and bring the relevant adapter when I go on holiday. These can be bought in the shops in airport terminals, in duty free shops on ferries and on Amazon if you have the lead time.
I brought my 1992 486 laptop to Italy with me back in 1996 or so, and even then the power supply had a rating of 100-240v. I still have that laptop somewhere in a drawer. It's not like this is a new thing, they had solutions for it back like 40 years ago... Even PCs had a switch in the back for 120-240.
Lots of electronics did that even BEFORE personal computers. I have had many electronics (Receivers, Tape decks....) from the 1970s that had line voltage switches.
I had been plugging into a miswired outlet for years, said outlet was a NEMA20, 120vac 20 amp. I had been plugging my laptop into it for years while working at that particular site. no issues imagine my surprise when I plugged a tool battery charger into it which promptly burst into flames. the person who wired it c;aimed it was a 240vac socket, he was a handy man, and not an electrician by trade. I replied that it was a 20amp 120 volt socket that was never meant for 240
I did networking work at a large mine in Irian Jaya, Indonesia 30 years ago. The mine had infrastructure spread out over 80 miles and different places had different power and plugs. I’m glad Cisco made their equipment power supplies to handle 50-60 Hz and 108-240 volts.
5:57 At this point of the video an American plug is connected to a British socket using an adapter. NEMA 1-15 and 5-15 plugs are rated for 125 Volts, and they are not fingerproof either. They should never be connected to 230 Volts.
For comparison: Here in continental Europe the railway network still reflects the times of every country reinventing the wheel in safety matters (including signalling) and catenary voltage. However, "modern" electric trains (locomotives and sets) can automatically adjust. (Including changing pantographs used, to match the "zig-zag amplitude" of the overhead wire.) If I have understood correctly, there even are train sets that can change track gauge without halting. (Note that standards have been agreed, but that implementation may take decades.)
😮 how to fill a video with a bunch of worthless repetitive words, wide gaps in information and ommition of Japan and the presentation of a receptacle from Australia or New Zealand and not one mention of it. If this was an AI video it would be time to delete some portions and low level format...
Also Japan using "US" plugs but at 100 volts and with two entirely seperate electrical grids, one on 50hz and one on 60hz. Also the fact that South Korea did change over their entire national electrical standard. Now I'm wondering how the Soviet Union did it, did they standardise all their other nations to whatever Russia's standard was? And is that still used today?
Yeah, I'm only a third of the way through watching this video, and the LLM like narration has completely skipped over a bunch of important historical and technical details... which are _specifically the topic of this video_ The earliest outlets were Edision light bulb sockets... because for the first thirty years of commercial electric service in the United States, the only electric devices people had were incandescent light bulbs, and either DC motors, or three-phase AC motors... which determined whether or not you would use the Edison or Westinghouse system. The NEMA two blade outlet was a random commercial product somebody was selling in the 1920, which would screw into an (Edison) screw lamp base socket, so that it was much easier to disconnect your toaster or whatever, than needing to unscrew it from the outlet all the time. (Especially if you have more than one device, but only one lamp socket, and constantly need to swap them.) There were several other physical form factors for plugs and outlets in the US and in Europe. The ones that survived until the 1950's are basically the "standard" ones we have now. (Except Italy had another one through the 1960's that eventually was abandonded for the German Schuko standard.)
11:19 The devices in this pic are mostly USB powered, i.e. 5V. Try to feed them 110V and you'll let the smoke out. One other issue you get is with proliferating standards. People complain there are too many different standards, so they get together to create a new standard. The result is one additional standard, not the extinction of the old standard.
If you really want something inconvient to deal with, try traveling to Japan, where there are two "standards" in one nation. It's not that much of a pain or inconvenience to travel with a proper adapter set. What is a problem, is that there are so many cheap adapter sets that convert plugs, but not voltage. While many electronic devices will automatically deal with whatever voltage they get, most everyday devices will not, and a plug-only adapter becomes a fire hazzard.
These happened because in 1896 Tokyo bought generators from AEG and in 1897 Osaka bought them from GE. Note at that time the 50/60 Hz division had already been established even though both Europe and the US had several frequencies. Noet also that AEG is basically just GE in German. (Allgemeine Elektricitäts-Gesellschaft)
I think the answer would be for a refocus of NEC to use native DC in-house for all but high draw specialty appliances, perhaps PoE for internal distribution. Then, everyone can be standardized on PoE 48VDC for everything but the largest draws like central AC, heat, cooking. I bet it'd reduce breaker panel complexity by at least 75% and make for a common standard for most home applications. And there's already a huge installed base and manufacturer base for PoE equipment. It would also facilitate IoT.
In theory it would make perfect sense to use a "standardized" in-house DC system for "low power" electronic devices and maybe lighting, but even if you could manage to get the world to agree on one international standard it would take decades before becoming widely implemented and until then you'd still need to take adapters and the external PSUs with you when traveling (alongside the "new" DC cables). A DC system would also increase complexity because you'd have to install it alongside the "traditional" AC system which you'll still need. You may still want to use a vacuum cleaner from time to time or some power tools for renovation or just use your toaster or electric kettle (or any "high power" kitchen appliance) somewhere else in the house. Plus there will be "old" electronic devices around for a while that either have built-in PSUs or require different voltages than the "new" DC standard. In addition to that you need over-current protection for the DC system as well. Just feeding a single DC circuit with sockets throughout the house from a single PSU with a "high current" output doesn't sound like a good idea. You probably want multiple circuits (with separate circuit breakers) for that or have some sort of a "per socket" protection to prevent one faulty device to kill the whole DC supply or start a fire by drawing more current than the plugs and cables were designed for. For IoT devices PoE usually works fine (those things consume *very* little power) but if you want to charge your laptop (or even charge your smartphone or tablet *quickly*) or maybe even use it to power Desktop-PCs, TVs etc. the capabilities are very limited especially if you want to power multiple devices at the same time, throughout the entire building, possibly connected via pretty long (and thin) cables to the "central PSU".
too many 120 or 220 volt appliances out there so you would be building homes with dual systems for 50 years. Since you would never be able to sell a house if the buyer was told "you will need to replace everything you own that plugs in". And I doubt PoE can run my gaming PC or 3D printers.
6:40 This is of course complete BS. Most US homes already have 240 Volts (which is within the tolerance of the 230 Volts standard used everywhere else on earth). If you want that voltage, all that’s required is to rewire your fuse box and switch the sockets. No need to change the power generation or distribution.
Seen that actually done in a few high end homes homes in the US, Surprise surprise to see a bunch of European outlets in one guy's kitchen. Meh, his mixer will run 20% faster in the US
I'm not an especially patriotic person, but the British plug socket is easily the best, and I'm proud of that fact. It's safest and plugs properly hug the socket, not like those daft two-pronged ones that always feel a bit loose.
Well a sort of universal standard at least for 230V has been designed but it's only used by South Africa and Brazil so far: The IEC 60906-1 or Type N plug
I thought that a reason for difference types of outlets is to prevent accidents. By having different outlets for different types of currents would prevent you from plugging in a device into an outlet providing the wrong type of current. As an example, a U. S. standard outlet would only provide 120 volts at 60 hz. Please correct me if I'm wrong. I think that it is kind of like fuel pump nozzles in the U. S. The nozzles for gas and diesel are different so that you are less likely to put diesel into a gas tank and vice versa.
With switch mode power supplies for electronic devices, we are getting closer to a standard. That being said, if we need to run something larger, there are voltage converters and probably some day we may see an inverter that takes 220-240V 50 Hz and converts it to 120/240V 60 Hz or vice versa but most people travelling may not need this due to that aforementioned power supply. Also, if you look closely enough, we do have a set of standard plugs and outlets under the IEC 60320, even though they are usually for the appliance/device end of a power cord. The common ones being the twin lead C7/8 round pins used on some game consoles and laptops up to the common C13/14 used on larger draw devices requiring a ground but more specifically desktop/tower PCs.
The house I was born in ha round pin sockets of3 sizes : 3 amp 5 amp and 15 amp. All on 240 Vdc. And fed on a radial system in turn fed from a local generating station. A nearby town, leek in Staffordshire was on dc and the whole town ran on batteries from Friday evening until Monday morning ! When I was 10 we moved into a new house with the current uk 3 flat pins on a 32 amp ring circuit. Each plug has its own fuse according to what it is feeding. Until recently there were many places with the round pins but on ac as the grid system. So the uk did in fact change from one system to another but over a 30 year period. There were of course many strange adaptors about. I have a collection and it is possible to have over 20 outlets from 1 13 amp socket !
Germany used 220V, England 240V. Today the voltage is uniformly 230V single phase, 400V three phase. The German Schuko plug (type F) was invented in 1930 and introduced in 1948. Belgium, France and the Czech Republic opted for type E in order to save on licenses. Italy and Greece are in the process of switching from national sockets to type f. Denmark is switching to type e. There is a plug that is compatible with type e and f. But the type c plug also fits. England also had round pins with the type D (BS 546) 5 Amp plug. The pin spacing was 18.94 mm (¾ inch), in Germany and France 19mm. Pin diameter 5mm was in all European countries In 1950 England decided to use rectangular pins in the future: BS 1363 type G Europe wanted to introduce a uniform plug. This failed. Only Switzerland and Brazil followed the draft. Although both are slightly different. Israel changed the sockets from flat contacts to round contacts. This makes the European type C plug possible.
There has been a lot said about the cost of catering for different voltages and frequencies but this is cheap in comparison to harmonising voltage, frequency and socket patterns worldwide. In reality, there aren't that many socket patterns, with less than ten in common use. There's the 120V Nth American socket, familiar to many. On 220V sockets in the US, used for heavy appliances, this pin pattern is extremely similar to what is commonly called the Australian socket, with the latter derived from the former. The only difference between the two is plug pin length though both plugs will work in both sockets. Plugs from both countries will fit each other's socket and work correctly. China, Uraguay and most island nations of the Sth Pacific use the Australian socket, with China orientating theirs upside down for some strange reason. Then there's a socket for the Sub-continent, another for Great Britain and some of the British territories and another for the EU. It would simply be too expensive and inconvenient to change the socket used in any of the above areas as existing ones are already so widespread. A few countries have a unique socket just for them but it doesn't seem to bother them.
6:41 I just love how they show somebody installing a newly made non-earthed socket on crap wiring. Sure it's better than installing an earthed socket on just two wires, but come on, 1,5mm2 aluminium wires are useless nowdays, they should rewire instead of putting sugar on a massive pile of shit, surely that will make it better.
In the 80's IEC introduced IEC 60906-1 (Type N) designed to be the universal standard. It tolerates up to 240V 10A, has insulated pins, as safe as Schuko, compact as Europlug, plus, least pain to stepped on. Nowadays only Brazil and South Africa adopt it. Or if your country has an A-B-C Hybrid wall outlet, switching to the TIS 166-2549 (Type O plug) is the least effort to standardized your country's plug and socket without rewiring everyone's buildings.
I live in South Africa.Basically, all appliances still use the old UK 3 round pin plugs. The new socket and plug are way better. All new houses must support the new standard - most sockets combine both old and new. The socket can also allow a "flat" (not "round" (french)) two pin plug to plug in as well - very convenient. We use 240V/50Hz.
O Brasil adotou o padrão IEC 60906-1 em 2002, mas ainda tem muitas instalações no padrão misto Nema junto com pinos redondos de 4mm. As tensões aqui são padronizadas 127/220 volts e 220/380 volts dependendo a região em alguns bairros de São Paulo ainda tem o sistema americano herança da antiga Light canadense. A frequência é 60 Hz padronizada nos anos 50.
Bs1363 plug is one of the safest plugs in world. Paired with the safety functions built into the socket also is much better compared to the rest of the world. Although we use the same colours of cables now and voltage to the rest of the European areas the plug that they use is much less safe
There are no deep dive, but good all around information about topic which saddened me because I know it all, but still good introduction for people who not so deep in technologies.
USB has become an international standard for LVDC power supply. USB-C PD being able to give up to 100W of LVDC is going to pretty much be the answer for the future, at least for that level of power.
The UK G type plug is the best by far. It has an inbuilt fuse so if you have a problem you have more redundancy, it has a switch on the plugs allowing it to be turned off without taking out the plug. The shape & design makes it very hard to remove when you aren't trying to making it good for equipment with wires. It has a little bit of a longer ground pin making it easily prevent kids poking forks into the socket as well its closed until the ground is in. It has ground & has insulated pins (usually). Finally its big & easily found. Only downside is it often lays upright when it falls on the ground & in the dark those pins will make Lego look like pillows but if you store out of use plugs well you'll be fine.
@@pjeaton58 huh most modern plugs have the fuses already set in. Like I think I've seen people change them twice & one of those times was due to it being the physics lesson that taught me how the plug works.
South korea changed Their standard 110v/60hz to 220v/60hz it took decades to change fully. in 80's, houses had 2 different outlet or have transmitter to change voltage.
Rather full of generalities. The subject is outlets, but the discussion is about wider issues covered very superficially. :odern electronics is making portable consumer appliances voltage and frequency tolerant. Physical shape of outlets is dowm to a few standards, and adapters do the job for the relatively few people who travel. Better outlets are possible, but they need to be backwards compatible with existing plugs.
If some universal design is adopted, it should be a totally new design and not simply "picking one". The new design should be able to handle the highest voltages and currents that come from any normal plug anywhere in the world, so simple, cheap adaptors would make the transition period much less painful. In some circumstances maybe you could just superglue the adapters on the existing sockets and not even need new ones. Other than that- Fuses and/or "mini breakers" in the plugs Grounded Ways to prevent touching the live pins while it's being inserted (the UK "has" this today, but didn't when I was a kid!) Switches on the sockets Maybe even a way of "locking" the plug in if it's live (a lever-like switch on the socket that puts a pin through a hole inside), so little kids can't pull it out suddenly and cause a spark
hmm, wait is that why many power supply has a voltage rating of 100-240 volts? because it could be plugged to an plug adaptor so it's design is the same but different voltage?
Basically yes. Often the power supply (circuit) is exactly the same and the only difference is the plug type depending on where in the world you buy it. I don't know if those power supplies were intentionally designed with travelers in mind or if it's because it's cheaper to use the same circuit boards and components for the "international market" rather than producing different models (or both). There are also some power supplies that don't have the "wide input voltage range"… obviously that’s true for older power supplies that use conventional transformers but I've also seen switched-mode power supplies labelled as "220-240 V AC" input. The latter might still work fine at a much lower voltage (maybe they were just labelled according to the common voltage for the plug type rather than the actual minimum voltage the circuit needs to start working) but I wouldn't rely on that and I definitively wouldn't just try it out the other way around (if a power supply works at a higher voltage than it says on it's label) as it could be limited by the maximum voltage rating of some of the components being used.
Switching mode power supplies work on wide voltage range.They are marked 100-240 V as that s the range used in the world. They could work even slightly outside that range (and in fact should as there always is variation on the actual voltage). There are also other reasons to use them instead of traditional transformers. They are light and efficient. One would not want to carry a heavy transformer. Mu old Nokia used ACP-7E charger which was 180 grams and 1.3 W. Modern 18 W chargers are about 30 grams.
I believe the problem would be 99% solved if the biggest hotel chains just offered electricity based on both local and European standards in their rooms.
Would you require some hotel chains to offer both 110V/60Hz and 220V/50Hz outlets? Having them make considerable costs? Would you expose the staff of other hotel chains to the rage of customers who had assumed their hotel to offer both voltages? How about Airbnb? How about cruise ships? - Just curious. :-)
why would that solve the problem? Do you realize how many people do NOT travel. compared to how many people already own a home or rent a place they seldom leave? Most portable devices are already compatible with various voltages and freqs so all they need is the cheap plug adaptor.
I always thought the differences in voltages, Hertz and outlets was a workaround to getting around paying licenses and such. If the UK used a NEMA style plug like the US, Canada, Mexico and allot of Central American countries in the beginning, then Westinghouse might be able to sue over copyright infringement. Same goes with voltage and hertz. The only advantage I could see using a higher voltage is the ability to drop the current in order to use thinner wiring to save money on copper.
No, originally everyone had round prongs. Even Hubbell patented one in 1904 but he had problems with them so he switched to flat ones, first horizontally and then vertically. Plugs do not have copyrights. They may have patents and Hubbell originally did try to sue other makes. The court basically said that while he had a patent, the benefit of having a standard outweighed his rights. Now there may have been individual cases where licensing fees affected. I have heard Czechoslovakia chose Belgian/French sockets in the 1930s as Germans wanted license fees. With modern plugs those are mutually compatible.
UK standard is the safest. Earth connection, and a fuse. Live and Neutral prongs are also designed in such a way when the plug is not fully plugged in, the exposed connection won't cause a electrical shock due to insulating layer at the pins
Nowadays all devices use switching power supplies that are multi-voltage and an adapter plug is pretty cheap. That's easier than re-building an entire country's grid
There is no reason you cannot equip a house in the USA with some or all European plugs, either on new construction or old retrofits. The 220v is there, and 60h vs 50h is a non-issue for the vast majority of appliances. The issue is finding a UL approved outlet, but since European plugs are actually safer than USA plugs, that should be a non-issue as well (but of course isn't).
You don't WANT to be able to plug into an outlet that supplies a different voltage and/or different frequency! What could and should be standardized, is an outlet for each specific combination of voltage and frequency, so, if the plug fits, it's safe to power up the device.
Well, with the application of switch mode power supplies and inverters, you could use your North American devices on European voltages and frequencies. Granted, it's still a box between your device and the wall. That said, in North America, we have a variety of outlet and plug styles that could baffle some in Europe like having plugs and sockets for different voltages and currents as well as twist locking plugs for more commercial/industrial devices.
You might argue you want intentionally incompatible plugs for different voltages and frequencies, so you could never plug any device into an outlet where it may not work (or even be a hazard). But you could also argue that the frequency doesn't matter at all for most devices you might carry around and plug into a random outlet and that using adapters might be an additional safety risk (e.g. missing ground connection, no protection against touching energized prongs of partly inserted plugs with certain combinations of plugs and adapters or just flimsy adapters not capable to withstand high currents if used with high power appliances or multi-outlet power strips). I mean, people will use adapters if that makes their stuff work somehow but many of them may not be aware of the limits and additional risks.
This somewhat exists inside our computer's power supply. It takes the incoming power (anywhere from 100-250 volts AC) rectifies it, sends it through some kind of oscillator/switching circuit to a higher frequency, then through some small transformer(s), rectifiers and final power to the computer itself.
@@WJCTechyman Excellent awareness. Aircraft transformers had to shed weight, which lead to other improvements. Some where transferred to military ships where size and weight reductions helped. Yes it cost more, but the DoD has deep pockets.
I would love to see North America adopt 240 volts across the board to align with the United Kingdom standard, but keep 60 hertz as our frequency as we already use 240 volts for heavy-duty appliances such as the laundry dryer, electric cooking range, electric furnace, air conditioning, water heating, and ev charging.
Just pay for all the scrapped light bulbs vacuums toasters coffee makers etc. Lol There better odds that France will speak all German and Eastern Canada too. Or all of Europe will speak Klingon. All the houses and businesses use 120 volts for smaller loads. You would to rewire all receptacles and lights on building. Change out all breaker boxes. Scrap all washing machines. That's just say 70 to 200k per house. Lol 😊
If I may, there is *one* electrical standard that both the EU and the US have harmonized on (And fingers crossed the UK _doesn't_ de-harmonise from it because _„Levelling Up“_ 😉) and that's overhead traction supply for railways - Both provide 25KV @ 50Hz. This means a TGV to New York from Paris can happily run on the same electrical supply for the entire journey and doesn't need to transition at any point. 🇺🇸🚄💨🇫🇷👍 And that's the reason why I hope we Brits don't _de-harmonize_ from that standard. We might've just sent our national progression spiralling backwards by more than 70 years and are now starting to look _worryingly_ like 1930s Germany, but the last thing I want to see is us putting a spanner in the works of any transatlantic rail link... 🇺🇸🛂🇬🇧🛂🇪🇺😨
Except that rail travel to North America from Europe isn't possible or financially viable due to the issues like tectonic plates and a fairly vast Atlantic Ocean.
@@WJCTechyman True, true...But if my experience is anything to go by, there isn't any natural obstacle that cannot be overcome by the sheer indominatability of French civil engineering... 🏔🌉💪🇫🇷🚄😉
It's pretty irrelevant to have an electrical standard for railways running on different continents. You wouldn't ship whole trains from America to Europe back an forth to run on each other's rail tracks… and if you wanted to do that (for whatever reason) you could build "multi-system" trains. Different voltages wouldn't be the biggest problem nowadays but when it comes to trains you'd also have to consider different safety systems and different regulations for each country (if the track gauge is the same at least). Even throughout Europe it isn't as harmonized as it "would be nice to have". While France, the UK, Portugal and many countries in Eastern Europe widely use 25 kV @ 50 Hz for traction supply, Norway, Sweden, Germany, Switzerland and Austria commonly use 15 kV @ 16.7 Hz and Spain, Italy, Poland (and some other counries) use something around 3 kV DC (at least for part of their rail network). Not to mention that some rail tracks are not electrified at all or use another system than the rest of the same country. Actually, that’s a much bigger mess than worrying about different plugs and sockets when traveling (though it's not your problem as a tourist to solve technical issues about "international" rail travel and it might not even come to your mind).
I m a asian , but i think the usa electronic plug style ( i just talking about plug prongs not the electric system )is the best , if you have chargers and everything you can fold them its just a way better idea 😮
@@okaro6595 i just said the design , you can fold them like you see in apple chargers . It's a completely different argument about safety and everything. They are compact and take less space on wall for normal 3 pin plug and 2 pin plug .
We already have a quasi universal electrical outlet already at least for a certain segment. It's called USB C The US plug and socket design is one of the worst in terms of safety Japan, interestingly, has two standards. One up north and the other in the south of the country.
@@worldcomicsreview354 In 1896 Tokyo bought generators from AEG and in 1897 Osaka bought them from the GE. (The irony is that AEG and GE means basically the same. (AEG = Allgemeine Elektricitäts-Gesellschaft)
At the end of the day the reason there is no standardised plug socket and power outage is because to many people will lose money if it happens. This video while informative, is nothing more than a distraction designed to make you not see the real reason.
Screwing another socket to the wall doesn't take any development. Two shapes could coexist for a while. For the vast majority of the world 230V is common. A different socket is only needed to indicate an incompatible voltage or current capacity.
The United States Uses a 240 volt 60 HZ split system. The 2 Hot wires is 240 volts. Hot to neutral (either side) is 120 volts. Having lived in the US, and in Europe, I can say that 120 volts is a better system. When something blows in Europe (light bulb, ect.) it can be a scary event, and is more likely to cause a fire. In the US, it's usually is just a pop.
5V DC is the universal standard, lol Considering how many electrical receptacles have built in USB A connector power sockets. Really, it's the 50Hz that really hangs things up in terms of intercontinental power transmission.
for the same reason shoes and socks come in different sizes. (just kidding) There are only a few standards worldwide but the plugs are another story and evolved locally 100+ years ago for a variety of reasons.
Many poorer countries adopted the 230VAC standard because they could use lighter wire gauges, thus saving money on copper wiring costs. But from what I read the UK has a lot more electrical fires in the residential sector than does the US. This results because higher voltages place more stress on wire insulation, resulting in more frequent breakdowns and arc-overs. As a result people in the UK have to pay for electrician(s) to come to their homes on a scheduled inspection basis to perform insulation audits for their fire insurance. The British electricians carry around these bulky megohm-meters, that used to use vacuum tubes (valves), for testing for insulation breakdowns and potential ground faults. I believe our (US) system with its dual voltage design is better thought out than most 230V systems. I have wired at both voltages and if you fail to put enough wraps of insulating tape on 240V connections, they will arc to ground much more easily than at 120V. When connecting two thick conductors together on a 240V welding system. I had to use these heavy copper clamps that squeeze the two cables ends together using a large nut and a slotted washer. Then the whole joint has to be wrapped in insulating tape. I did not get enough wraps on one joint and when I turned the circuit breaker back on pow! Rewrapped it and all was well.
Because it keeps the electrical adaptor factories in business ! ! .... for a REALLY silly electric grid , Japan has ½ the country on 50 Hz and the other ½ on 60 Hz ... ( errmm ) ............... DAVE™🛑
Ok, actually I believe it was WESTINGHOUSE v. EDISON. Westinghouse wanted AC, Edison wanted DC. Edison promoted using AC to execute prisoners, to show how "dangerous" AC is
If all countries could just go back in time to 1890, I’m absolutely sure all of them would have chosen the simple, compact NA plug and 120/240 volt split phase electrical standard.
@@ak983625 I lived in Canada and the electrical here is so sensitive, running commercial induction oven and blender can trip a breaker. I see more transformers installed in the residential areas. Also the plugs are so flimsy and less safe. Not all 220v is available everywhere, even in a commercial environment.
I will fight a "universal standard" for sockets. Lolz. But for real, sorry Europe, your sockets and plugs are ugly, and as for North American sockets, if I see an upside-down one, I have an uncontrollable urge to flip it the right way. If it's not the little "shocked" face, it's wrong.
The US does NOT have a 110-120 volt standard. It is 220-240 volts. Our 110-120 comes from dividing the incoming power from two halves of the generating/transformer systems. Many of our devices, especially items like ovens, dryers, large motors, etc. use the full 220-240 volts.
so plug adapters can be plugged and output 220-240 volts?
The US standard household outlets generally are 110 to 125 vac, the higher loads ranges from 208 to 240 vac most motors will run with in this range. Many industrial motors run on 3 phase 480 vac with industrial lighting on 277 vac
Then Europe uses 400V for that matter.
Either way, you're getting a one-phase 120VAC at the outlet to power 98% of your appliances.
Voltage standards are described by two voltages and a frequency. The first voltage given is live to neutral, the second voltage is live to live. Described that way the US have a 110V/220V 60Hz electrical system. The odd thing about the American system is, that is uses two phases that are at a 180° phase angle towards each other and a „delta high“ third phase that doesn‘t have a constant angle (and thus not a constant voltage) towards the other two phases. Which is a bitch when it comes to configuring things like three phase motors. In order to run smoothly, these require three phases that are at a 120° angle towards each other.
Westinghouse built his first Niagara Falls station to run on 25Hz in 1895. The change over to 60Hz wasn't complete until 1948.And even after that date local steel mills had large motors (Usually MG sets) that ran on 25Hz
So there could easily have been a 50Hz power system then.
@@DelticEngine No. The conversion was from 25 to 60 Hz
The pumping stations that keep New Orleans dry, still run on 25Hz power.
In the early days those who wanted motors wanted a low frequency like 25 Hz but those who who wanted lights wanted a high frequency like 133 Hz. The 50 and 60 Hz frequencies are a compromise between those.Tesla chose 60 Hz for his motor and Westinghouse or could not make it work at 133 Hz so 60 Hz became the norm in the US. In Germany Dolivo-Dobrovolsky who invented the modern three phase induction motor first used 40 Hz but as that made light flicker he raised it to 50 Hz.
No kidding? I did not know that bit I suppose that's why I ventured onto this video.
It's not addressed in the video, but the main reason for no international standard is each plug (and the systems behind them) were developed locally by different people for different reasons. Would you want to plug in a 120 volt appliance (easily) to a 240 volt connection in the days before we had self-regulating power supplies? 100+ years ago, that was the thinking. It's also the reason that NEMA has standards to prevent 20 amp appliances on 15 amp circuits and using your vacuum cleaner on a dryer outlet, although these days safety plays a huge part. Fun facts here.... the north American standard home outlet is also used in Canada and all of the Caribbean Island countries. That's a major part of the world. Many of those island countries still operate on the old US standard power of 105 volts, but 50 Hz instead of 60 Hz. I feel there must be a connection to the 50 Hz from British influence, because many were under British rule till 50 years ago. (Jamaica, Virgin Islands, etc) BTW, the USA has well over a dozen different plug standards, but the average homeowner never sees them because most are industrial in nature.
It's around 110 -120 in Jamaica
@@azeemtics6613 Yes, it is now in certain locations but away from the tourist areas and 20-30 years ago you'd be lucky if it was over 100 volts. They are slowly catching up to modern ways.
@@rupe53 Am lucky then to live close to Roundhill frl I didn't know Ik for an fact rural areas have problems
Philippines has US outlets, BUT 240 volts. Relatives have fried electronics even though we warn to use power converter.
@@BobJohnson-xg9ng Yes we can get 220 in Jamaica,
The rivalry was between Edison and Westinghouse. Tesla was a minor operator. The rivalry lasted just a few years until J.P. Morgan fired Edison. The 220 V system was adopted in Europe quite late, in many cases in the 1950s or even later. For long in many countries there were different voltages as each company decided it independently. In Finland it was the cities that used lower voltage whereas rural areas with longer distances uses higher voltage.
Yes. 1.5 minutes in and I know not to trust this channel.
The UK "standard 13A plug" and socket have much to commend them. The electricity supply is 240vAC, which would be dangerous without adequate safety features. Sockets have internal shutters over the live and neutral connnectons to prevent accidental contact. The live and neutral pins of the plug are part-insulated and distinctly shorter overall than the earth pin.
When the plug is inserted far enough, the earth pin moves the shutter in the socket aside, to permit the live and neutral pins to enter. By this time, only the insulated parts of the live and neutral pin are exposed. In addition to this, the "13A plug" incorporates a cartridge fuse, with a rating selected to protect the appliance and its cable in the case of a fault.
Most sockets have a switch preventing current flow until switched on. There are other safety standards including wire gauge, insulation, and cable grips that enhance the safety of the UK standard plug and socket
Everyone in the UK seems to think the rest of the world is stuck in the 1960s. The US receptacles also have safety shutters. There’s no need for fuses in most plugs, because the breaker in the panel matches the wiring in both the walls and the appliance. To make up for the slightly exposed pins as you plug devices in, American GFCI breakers are 6mA trip unlike the 30mA trip of British RCD breakers.
@@rpvitiello the fuse in the plug is mandatory due to Ring wiring because they are too cheap on copper. I've seen some British people are concerned and mad when someone plugs in the EU phone chargers in their socket that it will start a house fire. Well, if an appliance used as 0.3 A can start a house fire, it means the wiring is shi**y unsafe.
@@DangerWrap exactly! Brit’s think cuz they have “the best” plug/ socket their whole system is the best. They need those over engineered plugs to make up for the awful building wiring.
I think UK plug is created by cultural behavior of UK people itself, colder UK climate make alcohol consumption pretty high, due to dangerous of electricity, non sober people can easily make mistake when wrongly inserted the plug, so there are shutter that can only opened by grounding head and switch to ensure it's very safety.
meanwhile in US, two clumsy blade, no insulated at the blade, no grounding, really a nation for brave people 😅
@@caezaryo There is no such thing as polarity in AC, if your appliances breaks due to not "Plugged in the correct way" it means that appliances is a garbage quality. There are several types of shutter in different types. And the last thing is they're cheap on copper because after WW2, their colonies got independence, no more freebies resources.
I agree that NEMA is the worst and most unsafe design in the world. I see many Americans complain that something falls between the prongs, sparks and burning. Because there's no insulation, pit style outlet.
I dont want to make anyone angry or mad, but i think this is some bad AI made stuff.
This video DID NOT talk about why other countries relied on 50Hz over 60Hz. It said nothing about specifically WHY countries have their own standards in terms of specific needs.
I was also gonna mention, the biggest "bruh" moment is that, due to the unique circumstance in which its power grid developed, Japan is a _dual hertz_ nation, half at 50Hz and half at 60Hz! And you have to be really careful which prefecture you buy appliances in, because if you use it in one that it's not designed for (or you didn't spring for the fancy model that can accept both)... boom goes the weasel.
Considering that this is a history video? and it skips the 50Hz episode of the USA, how accurate is the rest of this video?
Still a lot more accurate than what the UK teaches its citizens about its own history... 😉
(Evidence: There's something that's not OK the British did in the 1700s that all the Spanish know very well about. A British person only chances across it if they visit one of Alicantes' castles and finds that _very revealing_ exhibition in the curtain wall... 🏰💣🤔)
Good point. They skipped over the "flat vs. Vertical" prong controversy in 1930 USA. They also skipped over 15 vs 20 amp prongs.
Why does the UK use round plugs?
The painted base of the plug is understandable.
Yes, UK wiring is very, very different from what little I understand. It is a loop circuit instead of a, slightly more wasteful, tree and branch design.
Grounds were not part of the American code till the 1960's(?)
@@allenshepard7992 > _Why does the UK use round plugs?_
Erm...Unless you're referring to BS-536 (Shaver outlets limited to 200mA, found only in bathrooms) you might want to update yourself on what UK plugs look like _now._ We've been using a design with *rectangular* pins and mandatory fuses since at least the 1950s! 😇
The reason why we use loop circuits (And why we have to have a fuse in every plug) is grounded (Heh! 🙃) in copper shortages in tandem with our _massive_ rebuilding programme after WWII - We didn't have enough available to lay the same spur circuits used in most other countries, and „rings“ allow cable to be (theoretically) spec'd at half maximum load as current flow to a load will traverse _both_ sides of the ring. ⚡🔁⚡
Granted this means more jolt for less copper - Admittedly., most ring circuits now have 40A cable throughout - But regrettably comes with considerable safety risks, particularly that any one outlet is fed by _two_ separate current paths, and dangerous faults can go unnoticed without regular testing. 🎰
Fun fact - half of Japan is 50Hz, the other half is 60Hz.
@@the_kombinator Good point.
Most of the world, including the US, uses a 220 - 240 volt standard. The US uses a center tapped power line transformer feeding the home, where half the voltage due to the center tap is used at lower power outlets (1,800 watts). Most of the differences between countries has to do with the standard home outlet. I don't expect these outlet differences to change to a universal, worldwide standard, as each country believes their outlet standard is the best.
Europe uses 400V three phase. This is about then normal sockets that most people use. You do not travel with your clothes dryer.
@@okaro6595 This makes sense for higher power needs. The US also has a 480V, 3 phase standard.
I'm partial to European outlets. You'll find them in East Asia too (Korea, anyhow)
@@the_kombinator I am familiar with the European plug, most countries opted for a variation of that standard using round contacts.
Yeah, I'm only a third of the way through watching this video, and the LLM like narration has completely skipped over a bunch of important historical and technical details... which are _specifically the topic of this video_
The earliest outlets were Edision light bulb sockets... because for the first thirty years of commercial electric service in the United States, the only electric devices people had were incandescent light bulbs, and either DC motors, or three-phase AC motors... which determined whether or not you would use the Edison or Westinghouse system.
The NEMA two blade outlet was a random commercial product somebody was selling in the 1920, which would screw into an (Edison) screw lamp base socket, so that it was much easier to disconnect your toaster or whatever, than needing to unscrew it from the outlet all the time. (Especially if you have more than one device, but only one lamp socket, and constantly need to swap them.)
There were several other physical form factors for plugs and outlets in the US and in Europe. The ones that survived until the 1950's are basically the "standard" ones we have now. (Except Italy had another one through the 1960's that eventually was abandonded for the German Schuko standard.)
Both UK and Ireland changed plug/standard following WW2.
As the revised UK wiring regulations allow looped sockets to reduce the amount of copper needed, however this neccesitated adding fusses to plugs, so to reduce confusion (for safety reasons), a new plug/socket shape was used.
That lack of copper was also the main driver behind using 220-240volts. Much of Europe needed their infrastructure rebuilt following WWII and the same copper scarcity that led to the UK adopting high amperage ring circuits with fused plugs made the higher voltage a necessary choice, despite it's safety risks and (at the time) shortcomings due to the much shorter lifespan of incandescent bulbs. With modern protections though the higher voltage doesn't matter as much, but it still is more dangerous. The UK plug is probably the best one out there. As an American, our plug design may have been first, but man is it lacking in many regards.
@@jblyon2the many issues in the USA are super cheap sockets that wear out easily, and lack of plastic on the prongs so there’s no exposed metal as you plug things in. Other than that the USA has added most safety features to the sockets.
I fail to see how ring circuits save copper. But the world would be better off with 240 volts and the UK residential plug.
@@anonamouse5917 the world would be better off switching to type N plug/socket, which were designed to be safe and compact. The UK plugs are absolutely ridiculous in the modern world where the plug is bigger than the device it’s attached too. Just build the protection into the building.
@@anonamouse5917 ring circuits use wire that’s 1/2 the size needed to carry the power, and instead relies on power coming from both directions of the ring. It saves copper, at the expense of safety, cuz now each wire is 1/2 the size it should be for the breaker protecting the circuit. If anything goes wrong the building wire can literally catch fire without tripping the breaker meant to prevent that from happening. That’s why they fuse everything at the plug to reduce the risk of that happening.
It’s an utterly absurd system that’s illegal in most of the world, because it relies on nothing going wrong to be safe just to save some copper. Other systems are designed to be safe even if something goes wrong.
This is the FIRST UA-cam video that I have ever given a thumbs down. Why? Because it didn't address the subject of its title. Sure it covers a lot about different voltages in various countries but NOTHING about the physical plugs and sockets: 'electric outlets'.
I've learn't far more on the title subject from reading all the brilliant responses, below :-)
On the local front...We here in Australia initially used 40Hz in some small areas, later changed to 50Hz. As recently as the 1970s the East Perth power station still had a huge 40Hz steam turbine alternator, feeding a 40Hz - 50Hz motor-generator set in an adjacent building.
Whilst Australia has never had 110-120v nor 60Hz, the standard Australian domestic three-pin plug was adapted from a US Hubbell design (now a NEMA something-or-other).
And on the subject of trivia some South American countries use this same 'Aussie' plug but wire the active and neutral the opposite way around. Go figure.
I don't regret giving this video a "thumbs up" (which puts it into a small minority of my views). :-)
Another Aussie. China has a similar socket to Australia but it's upside down. Some might argue that it is Australia(being down under) who got the socket upside-down
New Zealand shares the Aussie Socket
The house I was born in ha round pin sockets of3 sizes : 3 amp 5 amp and 15 amp. All on 240 Vdc. And fed on a radial system in turn fed from a local generating station. A nearby town, leek in Staffordshire was on dc and the whole town ran on batteries from Friday evening until Monday morning !
When I was 10 we moved into a new house with the current uk 3 flat pins on a 32 amp ring circuit. Each plug has its own fuse according to what it is feeding. Until recently there were many places with the round pins but on ac as the grid system. So the uk did in fact change from one system to another but over a 30 year period. There were of course many strange adaptors about. I have a collection and it is possible to have over 20 outlets from 1 13 amp socket ! The cross channel links are dc because of the difficulty in synchronising the uk with Europe. Also h do is less lossy.
The UK has changed plug designs several times. The BS546 was adopted in the 1930 replacing the old ones. In the rest of Europe the changes have been more gradual where existing sockets were changed like by adding grounding. In the UK people were expected to wire their plugs. In Finland at the same time that was banned. They did not want people to change ungrouned plugs to fit grounded sockets. Their efforts to prevent people from changing or modifying the plugs failed miserably. Almost everyone did that in the 1970s until double insulation made it unnecessary.
YES, there is an actual international (IEC) standard for this. it's used in brazil (in minimally customized form). the history of the brasilian socket change is quite interesting because the mixture of old designs had to be completely scrapped
It is also available in South Africa. Still new though.
I just think little of it and bring the relevant adapter when I go on holiday. These can be bought in the shops in airport terminals, in duty free shops on ferries and on Amazon if you have the lead time.
I brought my 1992 486 laptop to Italy with me back in 1996 or so, and even then the power supply had a rating of 100-240v. I still have that laptop somewhere in a drawer. It's not like this is a new thing, they had solutions for it back like 40 years ago... Even PCs had a switch in the back for 120-240.
Lots of electronics did that even BEFORE personal computers. I have had many electronics (Receivers, Tape decks....) from the 1970s that had line voltage switches.
I had been plugging into a miswired outlet for years, said outlet was a NEMA20, 120vac 20 amp.
I had been plugging my laptop into it for years while working at that particular site. no issues
imagine my surprise when I plugged a tool battery charger into it which promptly burst into flames.
the person who wired it c;aimed it was a 240vac socket, he was a handy man, and not an electrician by trade. I replied that it was a 20amp 120 volt socket that was never meant for 240
I did networking work at a large mine in Irian Jaya, Indonesia 30 years ago. The mine had infrastructure spread out over 80 miles and different places had different power and plugs. I’m glad Cisco made their equipment power supplies to handle 50-60 Hz and 108-240 volts.
It's because it's cheaper to mass produce a single power supply design, which can be selled on both continents with no issue.
5:57 At this point of the video an American plug is connected to a British socket using an adapter. NEMA 1-15 and 5-15 plugs are rated for 125 Volts, and they are not fingerproof either. They should never be connected to 230 Volts.
Modern Switching mode power supplies are multi-voltage.
Visit the Philippines, they use NEMA 1-15 directly with 230v.
For comparison:
Here in continental Europe the railway network still reflects the times of every country reinventing the wheel in safety matters (including signalling) and catenary voltage. However, "modern" electric trains (locomotives and sets) can automatically adjust. (Including changing pantographs used, to match the "zig-zag amplitude" of the overhead wire.)
If I have understood correctly, there even are train sets that can change track gauge without halting. (Note that standards have been agreed, but that implementation may take decades.)
😮 how to fill a video with a bunch of worthless repetitive words, wide gaps in information and ommition of Japan and the presentation of a receptacle from Australia or New Zealand and not one mention of it. If this was an AI video it would be time to delete some portions and low level format...
Also Japan using "US" plugs but at 100 volts and with two entirely seperate electrical grids, one on 50hz and one on 60hz.
Also the fact that South Korea did change over their entire national electrical standard.
Now I'm wondering how the Soviet Union did it, did they standardise all their other nations to whatever Russia's standard was? And is that still used today?
Yeah, I'm only a third of the way through watching this video, and the LLM like narration has completely skipped over a bunch of important historical and technical details... which are _specifically the topic of this video_
The earliest outlets were Edision light bulb sockets... because for the first thirty years of commercial electric service in the United States, the only electric devices people had were incandescent light bulbs, and either DC motors, or three-phase AC motors... which determined whether or not you would use the Edison or Westinghouse system.
The NEMA two blade outlet was a random commercial product somebody was selling in the 1920, which would screw into an (Edison) screw lamp base socket, so that it was much easier to disconnect your toaster or whatever, than needing to unscrew it from the outlet all the time. (Especially if you have more than one device, but only one lamp socket, and constantly need to swap them.)
There were several other physical form factors for plugs and outlets in the US and in Europe. The ones that survived until the 1950's are basically the "standard" ones we have now. (Except Italy had another one through the 1960's that eventually was abandonded for the German Schuko standard.)
Also no mention of the two most populous countries in the world, China and India.
11:19 The devices in this pic are mostly USB powered, i.e. 5V. Try to feed them 110V and you'll let the smoke out.
One other issue you get is with proliferating standards. People complain there are too many different standards, so they get together to create a new standard. The result is one additional standard, not the extinction of the old standard.
If you really want something inconvient to deal with, try traveling to Japan, where there are two "standards" in one nation.
It's not that much of a pain or inconvenience to travel with a proper adapter set. What is a problem, is that there are so many cheap adapter sets that convert plugs, but not voltage. While many electronic devices will automatically deal with whatever voltage they get, most everyday devices will not, and a plug-only adapter becomes a fire hazzard.
Those two standards then using a system of outlets derived from North America, but at a lower voltage set of 100/200VAC 50/60 Hz in households.
These happened because in 1896 Tokyo bought generators from AEG and in 1897 Osaka bought them from GE. Note at that time the 50/60 Hz division had already been established even though both Europe and the US had several frequencies. Noet also that AEG is basically just GE in German. (Allgemeine Elektricitäts-Gesellschaft)
I think the answer would be for a refocus of NEC to use native DC in-house for all but high draw specialty appliances, perhaps PoE for internal distribution. Then, everyone can be standardized on PoE 48VDC for everything but the largest draws like central AC, heat, cooking. I bet it'd reduce breaker panel complexity by at least 75% and make for a common standard for most home applications. And there's already a huge installed base and manufacturer base for PoE equipment. It would also facilitate IoT.
In theory it would make perfect sense to use a "standardized" in-house DC system for "low power" electronic devices and maybe lighting, but even if you could manage to get the world to agree on one international standard it would take decades before becoming widely implemented and until then you'd still need to take adapters and the external PSUs with you when traveling (alongside the "new" DC cables).
A DC system would also increase complexity because you'd have to install it alongside the "traditional" AC system which you'll still need. You may still want to use a vacuum cleaner from time to time or some power tools for renovation or just use your toaster or electric kettle (or any "high power" kitchen appliance) somewhere else in the house. Plus there will be "old" electronic devices around for a while that either have built-in PSUs or require different voltages than the "new" DC standard. In addition to that you need over-current protection for the DC system as well. Just feeding a single DC circuit with sockets throughout the house from a single PSU with a "high current" output doesn't sound like a good idea. You probably want multiple circuits (with separate circuit breakers) for that or have some sort of a "per socket" protection to prevent one faulty device to kill the whole DC supply or start a fire by drawing more current than the plugs and cables were designed for.
For IoT devices PoE usually works fine (those things consume *very* little power) but if you want to charge your laptop (or even charge your smartphone or tablet *quickly*) or maybe even use it to power Desktop-PCs, TVs etc. the capabilities are very limited especially if you want to power multiple devices at the same time, throughout the entire building, possibly connected via pretty long (and thin) cables to the "central PSU".
@Mimska.08-15 you missed the point. The agreed-upon standard ALREADY EXISTS and has an ecosystem. Stop being a moron.
too many 120 or 220 volt appliances out there so you would be building homes with dual systems for 50 years. Since you would never be able to sell a house if the buyer was told "you will need to replace everything you own that plugs in".
And I doubt PoE can run my gaming PC or 3D printers.
6:40 This is of course complete BS. Most US homes already have 240 Volts (which is within the tolerance of the 230 Volts standard used everywhere else on earth). If you want that voltage, all that’s required is to rewire your fuse box and switch the sockets. No need to change the power generation or distribution.
This was about normal sockets. Europe is 400 V.
Seen that actually done in a few high end homes homes in the US, Surprise surprise to see a bunch of European outlets in one guy's kitchen.
Meh, his mixer will run 20% faster in the US
I'm not an especially patriotic person, but the British plug socket is easily the best, and I'm proud of that fact. It's safest and plugs properly hug the socket, not like those daft two-pronged ones that always feel a bit loose.
Well a sort of universal standard at least for 230V has been designed but it's only used by South Africa and Brazil so far: The IEC 60906-1 or Type N plug
That is just the problem. Creating a universal standard just adds one standard to the existing ones.
Why isn’t there a Universal Standard for Electric Outlets?
Because the best part about standards is, there are so many!
There are 5 competing standards. Create a new universal standard. There are now 6 competing standards.
I thought that a reason for difference types of outlets is to prevent accidents. By having different outlets for different types of currents would prevent you from plugging in a device into an outlet providing the wrong type of current. As an example, a U. S. standard outlet would only provide 120 volts at 60 hz. Please correct me if I'm wrong.
I think that it is kind of like fuel pump nozzles in the U. S. The nozzles for gas and diesel are different so that you are less likely to put diesel into a gas tank and vice versa.
With switch mode power supplies for electronic devices, we are getting closer to a standard. That being said, if we need to run something larger, there are voltage converters and probably some day we may see an inverter that takes 220-240V 50 Hz and converts it to 120/240V 60 Hz or vice versa but most people travelling may not need this due to that aforementioned power supply.
Also, if you look closely enough, we do have a set of standard plugs and outlets under the IEC 60320, even though they are usually for the appliance/device end of a power cord. The common ones being the twin lead C7/8 round pins used on some game consoles and laptops up to the common C13/14 used on larger draw devices requiring a ground but more specifically desktop/tower PCs.
In the Philippines the power is 220 volt but the sockets are US style 3 prong, and the electrical box is sideways instead of up and down.
The house I was born in ha round pin sockets of3 sizes : 3 amp 5 amp and 15 amp. All on 240 Vdc. And fed on a radial system in turn fed from a local generating station. A nearby town, leek in Staffordshire was on dc and the whole town ran on batteries from Friday evening until Monday morning !
When I was 10 we moved into a new house with the current uk 3 flat pins on a 32 amp ring circuit. Each plug has its own fuse according to what it is feeding. Until recently there were many places with the round pins but on ac as the grid system. So the uk did in fact change from one system to another but over a 30 year period. There were of course many strange adaptors about. I have a collection and it is possible to have over 20 outlets from 1 13 amp socket !
Germany used 220V, England 240V. Today the voltage is uniformly 230V single phase, 400V three phase.
The German Schuko plug (type F) was invented in 1930 and introduced in 1948.
Belgium, France and the Czech Republic opted for type E in order to save on licenses.
Italy and Greece are in the process of switching from national sockets to type f.
Denmark is switching to type e.
There is a plug that is compatible with type e and f. But the type c plug also fits.
England also had round pins with the type D (BS 546) 5 Amp plug.
The pin spacing was 18.94 mm (¾ inch), in Germany and France 19mm.
Pin diameter 5mm was in all European countries
In 1950 England decided to use rectangular pins in the future: BS 1363 type G
Europe wanted to introduce a uniform plug. This failed.
Only Switzerland and Brazil followed the draft. Although both are slightly different.
Israel changed the sockets from flat contacts to round contacts. This makes the European type C plug possible.
Introduced in 1948? In Finland Schuko was used from 1930 on in wet rooms.
There has been a lot said about the cost of catering for different voltages and frequencies but this is cheap in comparison to harmonising voltage, frequency and socket patterns worldwide. In reality, there aren't that many socket patterns, with less than ten in common use. There's the 120V Nth American socket, familiar to many. On 220V sockets in the US, used for heavy appliances, this pin pattern is extremely similar to what is commonly called the Australian socket, with the latter derived from the former. The only difference between the two is plug pin length though both plugs will work in both sockets. Plugs from both countries will fit each other's socket and work correctly. China, Uraguay and most island nations of the Sth Pacific use the Australian socket, with China orientating theirs upside down for some strange reason. Then there's a socket for the Sub-continent, another for Great Britain and some of the British territories and another for the EU.
It would simply be too expensive and inconvenient to change the socket used in any of the above areas as existing ones are already so widespread. A few countries have a unique socket just for them but it doesn't seem to bother them.
It's not the standard for outlets that is the problem, it is the often lethal adaptors that are made to convert between them !
6:41 I just love how they show somebody installing a newly made non-earthed socket on crap wiring. Sure it's better than installing an earthed socket on just two wires, but come on, 1,5mm2 aluminium wires are useless nowdays, they should rewire instead of putting sugar on a massive pile of shit, surely that will make it better.
In the 80's IEC introduced IEC 60906-1 (Type N) designed to be the universal standard. It tolerates up to 240V 10A, has insulated pins, as safe as Schuko, compact as Europlug, plus, least pain to stepped on. Nowadays only Brazil and South Africa adopt it.
Or if your country has an A-B-C Hybrid wall outlet, switching to the TIS 166-2549 (Type O plug) is the least effort to standardized your country's plug and socket without rewiring everyone's buildings.
I live in South Africa.Basically, all appliances still use the old UK 3 round pin plugs. The new socket and plug are way better. All new houses must support the new standard - most sockets combine both old and new. The socket can also allow a "flat" (not "round" (french)) two pin plug to plug in as well - very convenient. We use 240V/50Hz.
O Brasil adotou o padrão IEC 60906-1 em 2002, mas ainda tem muitas instalações no padrão misto Nema junto com pinos redondos de 4mm. As tensões aqui são padronizadas 127/220 volts e 220/380 volts dependendo a região em alguns bairros de São Paulo ainda tem o sistema americano herança da antiga Light canadense. A frequência é 60 Hz padronizada nos anos 50.
Bs1363 plug is one of the safest plugs in world. Paired with the safety functions built into the socket also is much better compared to the rest of the world.
Although we use the same colours of cables now and voltage to the rest of the European areas the plug that they use is much less safe
Except only 1% of people know which size fuse to fit !
There are no deep dive, but good all around information about topic which saddened me because I know it all, but still good introduction for people who not so deep in technologies.
this is AIslop.
C14, C20 should be the standard. It protects against accidental touching of the "prongs".
USB has become an international standard for LVDC power supply. USB-C PD being able to give up to 100W of LVDC is going to pretty much be the answer for the future, at least for that level of power.
It should also be noted that lightbulbs (incandescent) designed for lower voltage (ie 120 instead of 240) are more efficient.
The UK G type plug is the best by far. It has an inbuilt fuse so if you have a problem you have more redundancy, it has a switch on the plugs allowing it to be turned off without taking out the plug. The shape & design makes it very hard to remove when you aren't trying to making it good for equipment with wires. It has a little bit of a longer ground pin making it easily prevent kids poking forks into the socket as well its closed until the ground is in. It has ground & has insulated pins (usually). Finally its big & easily found. Only downside is it often lays upright when it falls on the ground & in the dark those pins will make Lego look like pillows but if you store out of use plugs well you'll be fine.
Except only 1% of people know which size fuse to fit !
@@pjeaton58 huh most modern plugs have the fuses already set in. Like I think I've seen people change them twice & one of those times was due to it being the physics lesson that taught me how the plug works.
Dropped the "L" in alternating to fit the screen? 1:13
South korea changed Their standard 110v/60hz to 220v/60hz
it took decades to change fully.
in 80's, houses had 2 different outlet or have transmitter to change voltage.
It was 100V/60hz.
Rather full of generalities. The subject is outlets, but the discussion is about wider issues covered very superficially.
:odern electronics is making portable consumer appliances voltage and frequency tolerant. Physical shape of outlets is dowm to a few standards, and adapters do the job for the relatively few people who travel. Better outlets are possible, but they need to be backwards compatible with existing plugs.
If some universal design is adopted, it should be a totally new design and not simply "picking one". The new design should be able to handle the highest voltages and currents that come from any normal plug anywhere in the world, so simple, cheap adaptors would make the transition period much less painful. In some circumstances maybe you could just superglue the adapters on the existing sockets and not even need new ones.
Other than that-
Fuses and/or "mini breakers" in the plugs
Grounded
Ways to prevent touching the live pins while it's being inserted (the UK "has" this today, but didn't when I was a kid!)
Switches on the sockets
Maybe even a way of "locking" the plug in if it's live (a lever-like switch on the socket that puts a pin through a hole inside), so little kids can't pull it out suddenly and cause a spark
What about USB technology? I don't see different countries using different connections?
hmm, wait is that why many power supply has a voltage rating of 100-240 volts? because it could be plugged to an plug adaptor so it's design is the same but different voltage?
Basically yes. Often the power supply (circuit) is exactly the same and the only difference is the plug type depending on where in the world you buy it. I don't know if those power supplies were intentionally designed with travelers in mind or if it's because it's cheaper to use the same circuit boards and components for the "international market" rather than producing different models (or both).
There are also some power supplies that don't have the "wide input voltage range"… obviously that’s true for older power supplies that use conventional transformers but I've also seen switched-mode power supplies labelled as "220-240 V AC" input. The latter might still work fine at a much lower voltage (maybe they were just labelled according to the common voltage for the plug type rather than the actual minimum voltage the circuit needs to start working) but I wouldn't rely on that and I definitively wouldn't just try it out the other way around (if a power supply works at a higher voltage than it says on it's label) as it could be limited by the maximum voltage rating of some of the components being used.
Switching mode power supplies work on wide voltage range.They are marked 100-240 V as that s the range used in the world. They could work even slightly outside that range (and in fact should as there always is variation on the actual voltage).
There are also other reasons to use them instead of traditional transformers. They are light and efficient. One would not want to carry a heavy transformer. Mu old Nokia used ACP-7E charger which was 180 grams and 1.3 W. Modern 18 W chargers are about 30 grams.
I believe the problem would be 99% solved if the biggest hotel chains just offered electricity based on both local and European standards in their rooms.
Would you require some hotel chains to offer both 110V/60Hz and 220V/50Hz outlets? Having them make considerable costs? Would you expose the staff of other hotel chains to the rage of customers who had assumed their hotel to offer both voltages? How about Airbnb? How about cruise ships? - Just curious. :-)
why would that solve the problem? Do you realize how many people do NOT travel. compared to how many people already own a home or rent a place they seldom leave? Most portable devices are already compatible with various voltages and freqs so all they need is the cheap plug adaptor.
@@chrislaarman7532 Donald Trump said that it's dangerous to have electricity on ships.
It may need to change to a global home power system of 48v dc so to simplify rooftop solar power generation and storage.
good luck powering your home appliances like ac, washing machine, electric ovens...
@@ableite CAPACITORS!
I think PoE as a distribution mode would make much sense for such an environment.
I always thought the differences in voltages, Hertz and outlets was a workaround to getting around paying licenses and such. If the UK used a NEMA style plug like the US, Canada, Mexico and allot of Central American countries in the beginning, then Westinghouse might be able to sue over copyright infringement.
Same goes with voltage and hertz. The only advantage I could see using a higher voltage is the ability to drop the current in order to use thinner wiring to save money on copper.
No, originally everyone had round prongs. Even Hubbell patented one in 1904 but he had problems with them so he switched to flat ones, first horizontally and then vertically. Plugs do not have copyrights. They may have patents and Hubbell originally did try to sue other makes. The court basically said that while he had a patent, the benefit of having a standard outweighed his rights.
Now there may have been individual cases where licensing fees affected. I have heard Czechoslovakia chose Belgian/French sockets in the 1930s as Germans wanted license fees. With modern plugs those are mutually compatible.
Thanks
COOP
the WiSeNhEiMeR from Richmond, INDIANA, USA
...
UK standard is the safest. Earth connection, and a fuse. Live and Neutral prongs are also designed in such a way when the plug is not fully plugged in, the exposed connection won't cause a electrical shock due to insulating layer at the pins
All modern plugs are earthed unless the device is double insulated and the UK plugs need fuses because of the stupid ring mains system.
Ok I understand all the different situations but still, why can't we all use the same type of socket?
Standards are great! That's why we have so many of them.
About eletric plugs, USB can make a universal plug for eletric only and change for all
USB cannot deliver the 1.5-3 kW power that sockets can.
Power Wall could Solve , as the DC output could be standardized.
Nowadays all devices use switching power supplies that are multi-voltage and an adapter plug is pretty cheap.
That's easier than re-building an entire country's grid
I know right, piss me to no end. Sometimes all you do is just cross a border by road or just across the river and then your plug can’t be plugged in
Type K🙂 sockets are what the world needs.
Change my mind.
There is no reason you cannot equip a house in the USA with some or all European plugs, either on new construction or old retrofits. The 220v is there, and 60h vs 50h is a non-issue for the vast majority of appliances. The issue is finding a UL approved outlet, but since European plugs are actually safer than USA plugs, that should be a non-issue as well (but of course isn't).
You don't WANT to be able to plug into an outlet that supplies a different voltage and/or different frequency! What could and should be standardized, is an outlet for each specific combination of voltage and frequency, so, if the plug fits, it's safe to power up the device.
Well, with the application of switch mode power supplies and inverters, you could use your North American devices on European voltages and frequencies. Granted, it's still a box between your device and the wall. That said, in North America, we have a variety of outlet and plug styles that could baffle some in Europe like having plugs and sockets for different voltages and currents as well as twist locking plugs for more commercial/industrial devices.
You might argue you want intentionally incompatible plugs for different voltages and frequencies, so you could never plug any device into an outlet where it may not work (or even be a hazard). But you could also argue that the frequency doesn't matter at all for most devices you might carry around and plug into a random outlet and that using adapters might be an additional safety risk (e.g. missing ground connection, no protection against touching energized prongs of partly inserted plugs with certain combinations of plugs and adapters or just flimsy adapters not capable to withstand high currents if used with high power appliances or multi-outlet power strips). I mean, people will use adapters if that makes their stuff work somehow but many of them may not be aware of the limits and additional risks.
Modern electronic devices typically are multi-voltage.
If they kept the hertz standardized 50 or 60, it would be easier to adjust the voltages
they do that already. 99% of the world is 50 or 60 Hz. The oddballs are very old industrial gear, so they have their own conversion to 25 Hz.
What about the future? Will we have a 400Hz system like airplanes ? The transformers are smaller and more efficient.
This somewhat exists inside our computer's power supply. It takes the incoming power (anywhere from 100-250 volts AC) rectifies it, sends it through some kind of oscillator/switching circuit to a higher frequency, then through some small transformer(s), rectifiers and final power to the computer itself.
@@WJCTechyman Excellent awareness.
Aircraft transformers had to shed weight, which lead to other improvements. Some where transferred to military ships where size and weight reductions helped. Yes it cost more, but the DoD has deep pockets.
We will never use 400 Hz in homes. For power transmission it is less efficient. There is no advantage for home use.
The video gloss over many information. Why European countries eventually settle for 50 Hz and not 60 Hz nor 40 Hz are totally skipped.
It has a lot more to do with each nation attempting to protect their home market more than anything else...
😅 honestly i wouldn't be surprised id Europe make usb c universal for everything.
I would love to see North America adopt 240 volts across the board to align with the United Kingdom standard, but keep 60 hertz as our frequency as we already use 240 volts for heavy-duty appliances such as the laundry dryer, electric cooking range, electric furnace, air conditioning, water heating, and ev charging.
Just pay for all the scrapped light bulbs vacuums toasters coffee makers etc. Lol
There better odds that France will speak all German and Eastern Canada too. Or all of Europe will speak Klingon.
All the houses and businesses use 120 volts for smaller loads.
You would to rewire all receptacles and lights on building. Change out all breaker boxes. Scrap all washing machines.
That's just say 70 to 200k per house. Lol
😊
It is not going to happen and there is absolutely no need for it to happen. Get a life.
@@WesB1972 better odd there will be ONE shoe or dress that women buy.
Or ONE fishing lure too.
Lol
If I may, there is *one* electrical standard that both the EU and the US have harmonized on (And fingers crossed the UK _doesn't_ de-harmonise from it because _„Levelling Up“_ 😉) and that's overhead traction supply for railways - Both provide 25KV @ 50Hz. This means a TGV to New York from Paris can happily run on the same electrical supply for the entire journey and doesn't need to transition at any point. 🇺🇸🚄💨🇫🇷👍
And that's the reason why I hope we Brits don't _de-harmonize_ from that standard. We might've just sent our national progression spiralling backwards by more than 70 years and are now starting to look _worryingly_ like 1930s Germany, but the last thing I want to see is us putting a spanner in the works of any transatlantic rail link... 🇺🇸🛂🇬🇧🛂🇪🇺😨
Except that rail travel to North America from Europe isn't possible or financially viable due to the issues like tectonic plates and a fairly vast Atlantic Ocean.
@@WJCTechyman True, true...But if my experience is anything to go by, there isn't any natural obstacle that cannot be overcome by the sheer indominatability of French civil engineering... 🏔🌉💪🇫🇷🚄😉
It's pretty irrelevant to have an electrical standard for railways running on different continents. You wouldn't ship whole trains from America to Europe back an forth to run on each other's rail tracks… and if you wanted to do that (for whatever reason) you could build "multi-system" trains. Different voltages wouldn't be the biggest problem nowadays but when it comes to trains you'd also have to consider different safety systems and different regulations for each country (if the track gauge is the same at least).
Even throughout Europe it isn't as harmonized as it "would be nice to have". While France, the UK, Portugal and many countries in Eastern Europe widely use 25 kV @ 50 Hz for traction supply, Norway, Sweden, Germany, Switzerland and Austria commonly use 15 kV @ 16.7 Hz and Spain, Italy, Poland (and some other counries) use something around 3 kV DC (at least for part of their rail network). Not to mention that some rail tracks are not electrified at all or use another system than the rest of the same country. Actually, that’s a much bigger mess than worrying about different plugs and sockets when traveling (though it's not your problem as a tourist to solve technical issues about "international" rail travel and it might not even come to your mind).
Except for Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Sweden and Norway, which use 15kV @ 16.7 Hz.
I m a asian , but i think the usa electronic plug style ( i just talking about plug prongs not the electric system )is the best , if you have chargers and everything you can fold them its just a way better idea 😮
It is the worst. The prongs are totally unprotected.
@@okaro6595 i just said the design , you can fold them like you see in apple chargers . It's a completely different argument about safety and everything. They are compact and take less space on wall for normal 3 pin plug and 2 pin plug .
I have a fan that's good for 20 to 230 V, AC or DC. It's crazy!
Please avoid the yellow colored captions some of us can’t read or see, white on black thanks, subscribe from me ❤
We already have a quasi universal electrical outlet already at least for a certain segment. It's called USB C
The US plug and socket design is one of the worst in terms of safety
Japan, interestingly, has two standards. One up north and the other in the south of the country.
I don't know why Japan ended up with two grids, but it's certainly useful for earthquakes and typhoons.
@worldcomicsreview354 they imported German as well as US made electrification equipment which is why they ended up with two syatems
Yeah, run a USB C powered hair dryer. Also not everyone wants electronics installed in their walls.
@@worldcomicsreview354 In 1896 Tokyo bought generators from AEG and in 1897 Osaka bought them from the GE. (The irony is that AEG and GE means basically the same. (AEG = Allgemeine Elektricitäts-Gesellschaft)
why aren’t their removable universal power cords ?To just swap between countries
Leave it as it is, a nightmare to change it.
You have two choices. Forcing with a deadline like Brazil. Or using a backward compatibility like South Africa or Thailand.
At the end of the day the reason there is no standardised plug socket and power outage is because to many people will lose money if it happens.
This video while informative, is nothing more than a distraction designed to make you not see the real reason.
Changing sockets is a trillion dollars project to save you from buying a 30$ adapter
You could be like Japan too, have two standards within one Country.
Screwing another socket to the wall doesn't take any development. Two shapes could coexist for a while. For the vast majority of the world 230V is common. A different socket is only needed to indicate an incompatible voltage or current capacity.
The United States Uses a 240 volt 60 HZ split system. The 2 Hot wires is 240 volts. Hot to neutral (either side) is 120 volts.
Having lived in the US, and in Europe, I can say that 120 volts is a better system.
When something blows in Europe (light bulb, ect.) it can be a scary event, and is more likely to cause a fire. In the US, it's usually is just a pop.
LOL.
5V DC is the universal standard, lol
Considering how many electrical receptacles have built in USB A connector power sockets.
Really, it's the 50Hz that really hangs things up in terms of intercontinental power transmission.
Why isn't there just a standard of electricity?
for the same reason shoes and socks come in different sizes. (just kidding) There are only a few standards worldwide but the plugs are another story and evolved locally 100+ years ago for a variety of reasons.
Many poorer countries adopted the 230VAC standard because they could use lighter wire gauges, thus saving money on copper wiring costs. But from what I read the UK has a lot more electrical fires in the residential sector than does the US. This results because higher voltages place more stress on wire insulation, resulting in more frequent breakdowns and arc-overs. As a result people in the UK have to pay for electrician(s) to come to their homes on a scheduled inspection basis to perform insulation audits for their fire insurance. The British electricians carry around these bulky megohm-meters, that used to use vacuum tubes (valves), for testing for insulation breakdowns and potential ground faults. I believe our (US) system with its dual voltage design is better thought out than most 230V systems. I have wired at both voltages and if you fail to put enough wraps of insulating tape on 240V connections, they will arc to ground much more easily than at 120V. When connecting two thick conductors together on a 240V welding system. I had to use these heavy copper clamps that squeeze the two cables ends together using a large nut and a slotted washer. Then the whole joint has to be wrapped in insulating tape. I did not get enough wraps on one joint and when I turned the circuit breaker back on pow! Rewrapped it and all was well.
the elektric, Tenaga nasional berhad TNB in Malaysia
You will never get a universal standard because each country thinks it has the best system and will not change.
Because it keeps the electrical adaptor factories in business ! ! .... for a REALLY silly electric grid , Japan has ½ the country on 50 Hz and the other ½ on 60 Hz ... ( errmm ) ............... DAVE™🛑
Ok, actually I believe it was WESTINGHOUSE v. EDISON.
Westinghouse wanted AC, Edison wanted DC. Edison promoted using AC to execute prisoners, to show how "dangerous" AC is
Why isnt one language spoken in the world, or why is there no standard clothing across the world?
Why are these plugs still exposed?
there is not even a set standard on what electrical power is in varied countries.
If all countries could just go back in time to 1890, I’m absolutely sure all of them would have chosen the simple, compact NA plug and 120/240 volt split phase electrical standard.
Split phase is costly. A single phase of 220-240v can run dryer and air conditioner at the same time.
@@DangerWrap i guess you never lived in NA. We have separate plugs and outlets for all 240 v appliances. Live stoves, ac, and dryers.
@@ak983625 I lived in Canada and the electrical here is so sensitive, running commercial induction oven and blender can trip a breaker. I see more transformers installed in the residential areas. Also the plugs are so flimsy and less safe. Not all 220v is available everywhere, even in a commercial environment.
@@DangerWrap Absolutely zero extra installation cost or complexity. Heavy power draw appliances are on their dedicated breaker and plug anyway.
The person who invented or discovered a tech should set the standard, not Europeans or french frogs.
👍👍👍
Great video, but i dont remamber when was the last time i watched a video not nareted by an AI voice. I miss the good old humans
You use AI right?
Is this the unwrapped guy?
How much of this video was AI generated? The voice definitely was…
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This video is so generic I'm sure you made it with AI, didn't you?😒
I will fight a "universal standard" for sockets. Lolz. But for real, sorry Europe, your sockets and plugs are ugly, and as for North American sockets, if I see an upside-down one, I have an uncontrollable urge to flip it the right way. If it's not the little "shocked" face, it's wrong.
😂 😮 -'_
Nationalistic EGO!