Misadventure in Time

Funny, just had a visitor from NZ and I was *just* thinking about this...thanks for the link!

Looks like some world electric committee created a new standard, which will be adopted here in Brazil. No one else followed. We’re screwed.

"For example, Britain incorporated fuses in the appliance plug instead of the wiring system because of a shortage of copper at the time"

FAIL. The British system of having a fuse in the plug is for additional protection to the fuse in the ring main, not as an alternative. Often the plug will have a 3A or 5A fuse while the ring main will have a much higher rated fuse. So the fuse in the plug should go before the fuse in the house wiring. That way only the appliance loses power and not every appliance on the ring.

I noticed at Century Hotel Melacca they had a three prong outlet that was of course 220. You could not access the outlet with a two prong because of a built in saftey feature. Then I noticed all the pencil marks on the third hole. People were bypassing the safety feature to use any appliance. I was a little afraid of using 220 being accustomed to 110. Everytime the tv was turned on I could feel the electricity wanting to arc through my fingers.

It becomes fun in countries like Cambodia where both voltages are used and whoever built the house used whatever plugs were cheapest at the time. So I've seen 230V on American edison-style plugs, and 120 on Schuko.

NorwegianBlue - that's true, but in the implimentation of a ringmain there's considerable savings in metal over having each circuit run back to the fuseboard individually.

Must admit I rather like ringmains and BS 1363 plugs. They're safe, reliable and easy to use. Until you tread on one barefoot.