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They definitely shouldn't be.... IANA electrician, but as far as I am aware UK regulations require separate power and lighting circuits and a proper distribution board with RCBs.

And while our plugs may be clunky, I kind of prefer them to the wobbly, spark emitting two-pin plugs that I seem to come across in the US...



Obviously the US plugs are the worst, but thats the price for being the first. PAL was better than NTSC, too.


Being first is no excuse! Britain (and empire) used to use an older design, the current design was introduced in 1947.

India (and other places) still use the older standard, BS 546. That's also used for things like theatre lighting in the UK.


They needn't have been so bad: one small change--tilting the pins at an angle--and they could've been mechanically sound like Aussie ones.


NEMA 5-20 is exactly that. It's somewhat less common, due to the fact that it implies a 20 amp supply. Most plugs and sockets use the 15 amp version.


Aussie plugs are more like NEMA 11 plugs: the prongs are angled to form two sides of a triangle.


You mean NEMA 10?[0] All I can dig up for NEMA 11 are motors.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NEMA_connector#NEMA_10


You are indeed correct.


I'm not sure the order these were conceived, but it may be that there was already a plug with a similar configuration.

http://www.jmjwebsitedesign.com/cdpro/wp-content/uploads/201...


That's some panoply of configurations! It's a pity the most common configuration is the worst of them.




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