@ mainland Europe G-DIYers - wiring a plug...

Hi All,

Following a move to the Netherlands, I've stumbled across something which has got me scratching my head

Just trying to put European plugs onto some of my gear, it seems there's no convention about which way round live and neutral should go. 

Of course, this kind of makes sense since the plugs themselves can go into the wall sockets either way, thus potentially undoing any effort to wire the plug 'correctly' .

But it feels very wrong having done this so many times in Britain where as a youngster I had

bLue = Left

bRown = Right

drilled into me as a kid when wiring a plug; a rule that is never deviated from in the UK

Of course, as long as both live and neutral are isolated from the equipment by a suitable DPDT switch rather than only live or only neutral being part of the on / off switch, it doesn't really matter.

Or does it?

There's no special convention I'm missing here is there?

Cheers

Rob

Are these just two pin plugs??

Cheers

Ian

Well, they have two pins but there's earth there as well.  Earth is on opposing sides of the plug though. It looks like this :



You can see how there's nothing to stop the plug being plugged in one way, or rotated 180 degrees with the pins swapped.  It's still earthed either way as top and bottom (as you look at the left hand photo) are both earth.

Just seems wrong to make no consideration of polarity though.

Nope, no real convention as you can flip the plug in the socket. I always use brown for live and blue for neutral. Some plugs have this printed on them but this makes no real sense. The same goes for iec-inlets.
I always use DPDT mains switches in my gear..

Yeah, electrically it makes sense, and as long as the proper precaution is taken isolating both live and neutral at the power switch it's no big deal.

Just hard to disregard the habit of a lifetime I suppose!

Harpo said:

http://www.groupdiy.com/index.php?topic=49751.0

Click to expand...

Ah thanks Harpo!

Edited to add : I must admit I didn't search for this topic before posting, on the basis that it seemed too simple to have already been covered on this forum.  I'll know for next time!

Schuko (CEE 7/4) never defined a polarity.

"Schuko plugs and sockets are symmetric AC connectors. They can be mated in two ways, therefore live and neutral can arrive on either pin at the consuming device."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schuko

This is not unlike USA before 1972, continuing to the present day (many US outlets are white/black reversed).

It SHOULD not make any difference. Equipment should not make any assumption that a hot leg may be near earth potential. The only major exception is the Edison screw-base lamp, where it is all too easy to get a finger on the shell. Modern US wiring strives to land the groundED hot lead on the socket shell, via a wide-narrow wall plug. But wall outlets are poorly marked, there are many jackleg electricians, and I have found 60% of outlets in one kitchen reversed.

There's no european standard in this regard. Netherlands seems to be under german standard, which plug can be turned around. There's no big deal in twisting neutral and live because both have a potenial difference to earth. In France for example, the plug can be put one way only. We do have a convention like you do in the UK. but we have 0v between neutral and earth. It has more or less marginal safety advantages...
Laurent.

never paid attention to wich wire goes where (except for the ground of course)... and I am still alive and so is my equipment... so it should not matter that much I guess

erikb1971 said:

never paid attention to wich wire goes where (except for the ground of course)... and I am still alive and so is my equipment... so it should not matter that much I guess

Click to expand...

I wouldn't read too much into your anecdotal experience. I suspect a number of people who die of electrocution were not shocked previously.

In the US there are different insulation and spacing standards for ungrounded 2 circuit, and grounded 3 circuit line cords. 2 circuit line cords require double insulation, so there can be a failure in one of the two insulation layers and the customer is still protected from mains voltage. A single insulated product depends on a robust ground connection to the chassis to protect the customer from an insulation failure by tripping the mains fuse.

I would expect Euro zone 2 circuit line cords to use similar safety requirements.

AFAIK even polarized 2 circuit line cords (in US) are not guaranteed to provide a robust safety ground. I suspect any consideration for which leg is hot or neutral is used to minimize stray noise coupling.

JR

pyjaman said:

There's no european standard in this regard. Netherlands seems to be under german standard, which plug can be turned around. There's no big deal in twisting neutral and live because both have a potenial difference to earth. In France for example, the plug can be put one way only. We do have a convention like you do in the UK. but we have 0v between neutral and earth. It has more or less marginal safety advantages...
Laurent.

Click to expand...

while I personally think it's of no importance towards audio reproduction but there is a different potential between earth-to-neutral  vs earth-to-live of course! you can measure more or less 0V between neutral and ground. 'balanced' or symmetric power distribution is something different as both neutral and live are not referenced to ground anymore at all. but in traditional wiring anyway neither neutral nor live may come in contact with your (grounded) enclosure of course. DPDT switches make no real difference either, the primary transformer winding does not mind being at live potential when unpowered (switch in the neutral leg of the circuit) - the electron flow is off due to the switch opening the circuit and the appliance wil not take any power from the mains.

when thinking of the flow of electrons you can assume that they are drawn into one direction during the first half of the mains cycle, just to be repelled 1/25 second later - so there is no flow of electrons that would have to be sorted the right way by 'correct' polarity on the mains, really not. otherwise you would have to think about the love you have for half of the diodes in the rectifier bridge and if one AC leg is more important thus these diodes would have to be better quality ones..... ;-)

An other thing is that you can't be sure of the 'correct' wiring of the outlet  / extension cord anyway. with swiss outlets the neutral / live is determined like in the UK, but this is not a requirement for proper operation. In addition to all this there are two pole connectors that have no orientation throughout Europe for equipment without grounded housing (like consumer audio) where there are more stringent requirements regarding the insulation and wiring of the mains like double insulation and proper retaining clips on the power cord itself. with these plugs you have a 50% chance to have neutral on the 'right' side of your transformer and live toward the switch.....

- michael