I’ve seen a few videos on these and the benifits of european plug design. My only gripe with it is the size. I know it would be a pain because everything is already built for the the current standard, but an updated “micro” plug would be a lot better.
In fact, why doesn’t the whole world collaborate on a new plug design that takes the best from both and combines into a 110/220 auto sensing plug. Sadly i don’t see that happening any time soon. It’s much more likely that USB-C continues to gain ground and becomes the defacto DC power standard for consumers.
There’s no real need for a plug to be able to sense what voltage it’s plugged into. That would be handled device side, not plug side. And for devices for which handling both 110 and 220 makes sense, well those pretty much universally already have a switch mode power supply that does so automatically, or at least a dip switch with which a user can manually select their grid voltage (check your phone or laptop charger, I can virtually guarantee it already supports both).
And the issue with devices that don’t already do this, is generally that they are basic resistive or inductive loads (anything along the lines of heaters or motors), with little to nothing in the way of digital control electronics, which need to be designed for a specific input voltage in order to achieve a specific power output. Making these devices both 110V and 220V compatible would require either giving every single one of them a voltage transformer, or to include a 110V motor/heating coil, and a 220V one, that can be switched between. Both of which would massively increase the price of these devices.
Fun fact, the only reason North America can get away with our dinky plugs and sockets is because we only run 120V (typically). Anything here that’s 240V will have a much beefier plug and socket, more similar to the UK plugs. Heres a 240V/30A and a 240V/50A. These don’t bother with the coated pins because it would typically be plugged in once behind a big appliance and never touched again.
Conductor size is about current, not voltage, so I would expect 120V plugs to be bigger as they need to be rated yo 20A to be as useful as typical 240V/10A plugs.
Australia/NZ style plugs are much smaller than (and IMO superior to) the UK plugs despite both being 240V/10A
The plug contacts are basically never the limiting factor current wise. They are massive solid metal prongs, they can easily handle 20-30 Amps without getting too hot. The cable will always be limiting factor for current.
I’ve seen a few videos on these and the benifits of european plug design. My only gripe with it is the size. I know it would be a pain because everything is already built for the the current standard, but an updated “micro” plug would be a lot better.
In fact, why doesn’t the whole world collaborate on a new plug design that takes the best from both and combines into a 110/220 auto sensing plug. Sadly i don’t see that happening any time soon. It’s much more likely that USB-C continues to gain ground and becomes the defacto DC power standard for consumers.
There’s no real need for a plug to be able to sense what voltage it’s plugged into. That would be handled device side, not plug side. And for devices for which handling both 110 and 220 makes sense, well those pretty much universally already have a switch mode power supply that does so automatically, or at least a dip switch with which a user can manually select their grid voltage (check your phone or laptop charger, I can virtually guarantee it already supports both).
And the issue with devices that don’t already do this, is generally that they are basic resistive or inductive loads (anything along the lines of heaters or motors), with little to nothing in the way of digital control electronics, which need to be designed for a specific input voltage in order to achieve a specific power output. Making these devices both 110V and 220V compatible would require either giving every single one of them a voltage transformer, or to include a 110V motor/heating coil, and a 220V one, that can be switched between. Both of which would massively increase the price of these devices.
https://xkcd.com/927/
I knew immediately what I was going to see when opening the link haha
Fun fact, the only reason North America can get away with our dinky plugs and sockets is because we only run 120V (typically). Anything here that’s 240V will have a much beefier plug and socket, more similar to the UK plugs. Heres a 240V/30A and a 240V/50A. These don’t bother with the coated pins because it would typically be plugged in once behind a big appliance and never touched again.
Conductor size is about current, not voltage, so I would expect 120V plugs to be bigger as they need to be rated yo 20A to be as useful as typical 240V/10A plugs.
Australia/NZ style plugs are much smaller than (and IMO superior to) the UK plugs despite both being 240V/10A
The plug contacts are basically never the limiting factor current wise. They are massive solid metal prongs, they can easily handle 20-30 Amps without getting too hot. The cable will always be limiting factor for current.
iiiinteresting. good to know my whole house is a fire hazard by UK standards!