The live and neutral ports commonly lack the shutter and the fuse is not always present (edit: on low power devices). Some devices for whatever reason also feature a plastic earth prong which serves only to release the shutters to allow a connection. And if the earth is not present or is broken then the plug will sit loose in the socket. Another “feature” of these plugs is that they lay flat on a surface and hurt to step on.
The plastic prong is on devices that don’t get their protection from having an earthed case but by having double insulation. They should have a square with a square inside symbol.
If an item has exposed metal that might become live then they connect it to earth to prevent this.
If an item has no exposed metal, what would you connect the earth to?
Turns out I was wrong on that one. My bad. Some of them don’t really look like they have shutters but apparently they all do and it’s enforced too. I guess that makes even more sense why there are those plastic earth connectors on some plugs then.
Well it turns out I don’t know what I’m talking about at all despite using these sockets every day. They’re a lot more technical than I realised. Shows what we take for granted I guess.
The live and neutral ports commonly lack the shutter andthe fuse is not always present (edit: on low power devices). Some devices for whatever reason also feature a plastic earth prong which serves only to release the shutters to allow a connection.And if the earth is not present or is broken then the plug will sit loose in the socket.Another “feature” of these plugs is that they lay flat on a surface and hurt to step on.Otherwise they serve their purpose really well.
The plastic prong is on devices that don’t get their protection from having an earthed case but by having double insulation. They should have a square with a square inside symbol.
If an item has exposed metal that might become live then they connect it to earth to prevent this.
If an item has no exposed metal, what would you connect the earth to?
Do you have a source for this? Because I have never once seen such an abomination.
Turns out I was wrong on that one. My bad. Some of them don’t really look like they have shutters but apparently they all do and it’s enforced too. I guess that makes even more sense why there are those plastic earth connectors on some plugs then.
Well it turns out I don’t know what I’m talking about at all despite using these sockets every day. They’re a lot more technical than I realised. Shows what we take for granted I guess.