There are types A (Japan), B (US), C (EU), D (India), E (France), F (Germany), G (UK), H (Israel), I (AU) and so on: in which all have a distinct plug shape and differences in prongs. Type A plug is just two straight prongs without a ground while Type B is nearly identical to A but with a ground connection and Type F has no ground attached to the outlet while Type E does, usually this is solved with a adapter (for electronics that are dual voltage and support 50/60Hz frequency).
However, household appliances are typically region locked in the sense of being singular voltage (like electric kettles, toasters, refrigerators, washing machines) since those are intended to not be made for travel (mainly for domestic use supporting only a single plug type) unless you have both an adapter and a transformer. You can’t just plug a 120v 60Hz Toaster (B Plug) onto a 230v 50Hz outlet (Type F socket) with an adapter alone as that’ll blow the fuse.
Most modern electronics (as in laptops, game consoles and smartphones) support dual voltage and frequencies but their default plug type is region locked, so if you’ve bought a PS5 in the UK importing it into the US (the default cable is Type G that comes with the packaging when plugging into a TV) unless you swap cable for a Type B plug but it’ll work fine. Why is there no unilateral plug type that’s “region free” when discussing plug types found in appliances.
US runs on 240V, just like the UK. Pretty much every house in the US has 240V available. But we use split phase power for lower-power appliances, so most plugs in the house are wired to get only half that power – 120V.
There’s only a few appliances in a house that really benefit at all from the higher voltage: electric ovens, electric clothes dryers, (sometimes) electric heaters, and water-boiling kettles.
For ovens and clothes dryers (if electric), US houses almost always have 240V outlets wired specifically for those.
Electric heaters are often wired for 240V if they’re built in to the house. (But movable, portable space heaters are almost always 120V.)
The only odd one out is the tea kettle. But tea is a lot less popular in the US anyway, so not many houses have one in the first place. And the ones who do … just kind of deal with their water taking 6 minutes to boil instead of 3 minutes. Not worth re-wiring an entire country (entire continent, really) just to boil your tea a little faster. The switchover would be chaos, would result in a lot of things being made obsolete earlier than necessary, and would suddenly require a ton of inefficient voltage step-down adapters for people who didn’t want to throw away all their existing 120V appliances.
The thing is… Europe also uses split phase. You get three phase power coming in at 380V in most houses on the, 415 in the UK. The 240V is what you get on a single phase.
split phase is 2-phase system but everyone else uses 3-phase distribution. in reality americans also use 3-phase distribution, this is where 207v 3-phase comes from (it’s 120v phase to neutral)
Ah I didn’t know about 2 phase systems. In my corner of Europe you’re on either 3 phases or 1 phase. 1 phase gets you 240V, 3 phases gets you 380V + ability to have different consumers on different phases to distribute the load if your house’s wired for that.
I’ve got a few outlets in my house that take this type of plug:
Built in the 80s so grandpa got soviet plugs lol
This is standard for US wiring – circuit breaker panels are designed to alternate which phase is fed to which circuit, with each circuit being the opposite phase from its neighbors.
Europe doesn’t use split phase.
US split phase uses a special local transformer (with a center tap) to split a phase voltage in half. Thus resulting in 240V and 120V, both derived from the same phase upstream.
We don’t have such a complication. We use just the three phases that are transported all the way from the power plant, of course transformed down in voltage but not split.
The phases are 120⁰ apart. The voltages between the phases is 400V and the voltage from any phase to neutral is 230V (all voltages ± 10%). New buildings get 3 phase connections standard. Single phase is supplied to older houses which limits their power use to around 230V x 40A (current depending on the country) or around 9 kW.
380V is a decades old standard from the time when different European countries still had minor voltage differences
in EU there are really only two standards. for single phase loads up to 3.8kW, regular 16A plug is sufficient. above that, 3-phase 5-pin 32A plug (most common of them) is used which can deliver up to 23kW. there are common variants of 3-phase 5-pin plugs rated up to 125A that can deliver up to 89kW
and uncommon up to 800A variants that are also part of the standard, but it delivers up to 0.57MW and it’s a bit sillyi’ve found 1999 version of iec 60309 standard and biggest connector defined there was 250A. actually i wasn’t able to find vendor for currents higher than 125A, but for 125A, standard expects 16 to 50mm^2 cable and for 250A 70 to 150mm^2. lower ends of these ranges would be insufficient for full load and would require limiting current appropriately. maybe higher currents were latter additon. either way 32A is almost-standard and anything above that is in some way custom job
The wiring in the wall can handle 125A or even 800A?! What the fuck wire gauge are you guys using over there?
50mm^2 for 125A, just under 8mm diameter solid copper rod if it was solid copper rod. but it’s stranded so it’s a bit bulkier than that, bundled five per cable. it adds up to some 4cm in diameter
150mm^2 obviously (tho only for 400A). Don’t know that I’ve ever seen 800 amp powerlock, I guess they would be 240mm^2 and above.
I think they are talking about more industrial/commercial applications that use ceeforms or powerlock for 1 or 3 phase: 16A, 32A, 63A, 125A (I know, we were so close). Anything over that is powerlock, and I don’t know if any single phase powerlock.
Yeah, it makes so much sense to have many different voltages across your domestic installations…
It’s dumb as fuck, but you lot are stuck with it
Same in Europe. 240V and 380V.
Never seen 380v in a residential setting. I know theres a circuit for it in my building for the elevator.
the entire point of three phase circuit is that you can split it into single phase circuits without using too much wire. usually block will be wired so that 1/3 of flats is connected to one phase, but if you need to power big loads like ag tools or something like concrete mixer three phase supply can be done (415V these days, there’s upward shift in voltage)
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Usually in normal households, the electric stove is connected (hard wired) to all three phases (while the individual heating elements use only 230 V so it may also be used in single phase installations) to distribute it’s load.
Some people may use three-phase connectors for heavy duty tools, such as welding machines, electric saws or log splitters.
There’s a difference between the madness of 'Murica and having single phase and three-phase power in an installation
blame edison for that
He really was a dickhead
I don’t think you know what you’re talking about. Lots of countries split voltages in just every single building because it’s expensive not to.
Well fuck me, I guess being in the electrical industry for a quarter of a century doesn’t carry any weight, oh internet expert
Also 25 years in the electrical industry wiring and running conduit for 25 years while working through night school to become a PE. Just because you haven’t seen it doesn’t mean that it doesn’t exist. Good luck to you bud