Did you know that you can plug a 2 pin European Schuko plug into a U.K. 13 Amp adapter so that an appliance can be used here in the U.K. A Turkish Gent supplied me with tea all day today from a Class 1 electric samovar which had a two pin Schuko plug rammed into a 13 Amp three way adapter. It still worked without the earth being connected. Genius!
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Z.
Schucko, 16A is for Germany, parts of Italy and now much of the former eastern block, This has live and neutral pins, and a side swipe earth, and the pins are 4.8mm dia 19mm spaced and do not go in a 13A socket without an adaptor. Sadly they will force into a UK shaver adaptor, and both overload it and fail to pick up an earth.
3 are the L/N pins, 2 is the Schutz kontact == "safety contact' or earth, after which the plug is named, 4 is a slot that gives mechanical location and an increased creepage path.
These plugs are reversible so there is no concept of plug socket polarity, reversal is not seen as a fault, and all CE marked kit must work either way round.
The French socket have the same pins, but earth is a reverse pin, so a hole in the plug and no other location feature. This plug could have been polarised, as it only fits one way, but in practice both options of live left and live right are seen in the wild.. gah !
To aid harmonisation, most class 1 gear has a CEE7/7 plug with both the hole and side swipe contacts so that it fits French and German variants.
This suits about 80% of Europe
Swiss go their own way and have 3 pins
Danish had there own special
but in new buildings are phasing it out in favour of Schuko,
The Euro plug (CEE7/17) is only 2 pins, that are thinner and sprung to be slightly off parallel to fit all these options and more, and as it happens will also pick up power if you open the shutters on the UK socket, This is found on low current double insulated gear only.
Hope that helps.
Mike
