Electrical plugs (Split from National Postcodes to be introduced)

SpaceTime · 27-05-2014 11:59am

You can see why the South Africans adopted the IEC plugs though! They originally used the enormous old round pin British ones :

http://mybroadband.co.za/vb/attachment.php?attachmentid=98309&d=1391684384

Sam Russell · 27-05-2014 12:01pm

I checked my consumer unit.

There is a big fat ES German-type fuse for the incoming current.
A 110 A CB as the main CB.

A 32A CB for the cooker
Lights 10 A BY FOUR
I have two ELCBs
On the first 20 A by two
on the second 32A by one
20A by five.

So only one ring main fully exploited. Seven ring mains at 20 A.

Two ELCBs are to seperate areas of the house to prevent the whole house losing power at once.

I could probable reduce the 32 A ring main to 20 A if I wanted to as there is no major appliance on it. Reducing the 20 A ones to 16 might be a bit excessive. The 32 A one for the cooker is amost certainly a spur.

A way of converting the BS1363 to the IEC 60906-1 could be accomplished by incorporating both into the socket design as a transition. It would fit and would be safe if the fuse lark could be solved. I will not hold my breath.

SpaceTime · 27-05-2014 12:03pm

Sam Russell wrote: »

I checked my consumer unit.

There is a big fat ES German-type fuse for the incoming current.
A 110 A CB as the main CB.

A 32A CB for the cooker
Lights 10 A BY FOUR
I have two ELCBs
On the first 20 A by two
on the second 32A by one
20A by five.

So only one ring main fully exploited. Seven ring mains at 20 A.

Two ELCBs are to seperate areas of the house to prevent the whole house losing power at once.

I could probable reduce the 32 A ring main to 20 A if I wanted to as there is no major appliance on it. Reducing the 20 A ones to 16 might be a bit excessive. The 32 A one for the cooker is amost certainly a spur.

A way of converting the BS1363 to the IEC 60906-1 could be accomplished by incorporating both into the socket design as a transition. It would fit and would be safe if the fuse lark could be solved. I will not hold my breath.

They're most likely 20 amp radials, not ring mains.

Rings would typically be a 32amp breaker feeding sockets. The wiring runs around in a ring and is connected to the circuit breaker at both ends i.e. a ring.

The 20A circuits are most likely just a radials - in Ireland they would typically allow 10 sockets per radial so they're not exactly restrictive and a double-socket is treated as a 'socket'.

In France, they're a little more conservative and give you 8 sockets per radial (but the sockets can deliver much more power being 16Amp)

If your 2nd 32 amp MCB is feeding sockets it's almost definitely a ring.
It could also be for your electric shower or some other heavy fixed appliance.

---

You could definitely produce a combined French or Schuko socket that would also accept the 3-pin IEC 60906-1 plug. Basically all that's required is an extra earth 'hole' in the face of the socket and it would fit perfectly. The Live and Neutral pins are basically the same as existing Schuko plugs.

You could begin to phase out the old plugs then.

With the BS1363 system we use, producing a hybrid wouldn't be as easy. You would probably just have to put both sockets on the same plate. Although it would be handy as you could ultimately put 4 sockets on what we have as a double socket now. Would be very handy in the kitchen or behind the telly.

I suppose the simplest solution would be a 16A fuse or breaker in the socket, making them compatible with 32amp rings.

Sam Russell · 27-05-2014 12:11pm

I am fairly sure they are rings but not entirely sure as it is nearly 30 years when the house was rewired. Some work has been done since, but it was all done to a very high standard plenty of sockets, etc.

The ELCB s are all for sockets. The second was was to seperate computers from the main house. Would not want the computer to die because someone spilled water on the toaster, would I.

SpaceTime · 27-05-2014 12:32pm

It seems 20 amp rings were allowed at one stage, but that's no longer the case and hasn't been for some time.

Radials would be 16 or 20A
Rings 32A

(In modern regs anyway.)

For all intents and purposes, a 20 amp circuit (radial or otherwise) is still a 20amp circuit though. So, the setup in terms of protection would be very similar to a continental radial really other than that you're using British style plugs.

I know in this house, the wiring is 20A radials to junction boxes which then seem to feed out to the sockets in a kind of root and branch sort of layout.
It would have been wired in 1977/78.

Each one seems to serve 1 large room or 2 smaller rooms max and there are 3 serving sockets in the kitchen.

Sam Russell · 27-05-2014 2:15pm

I am reasonably certain these are rings. The fuse value can be set lower without any risk. The benefit of a ring is the increase in diversity that it gives. It has two routes for the current to go, so effectively it is twice that of a spur system, and it gives greater flexibility with cable routing.

The fused plug is a mistake, and does not improve safety in any real way and can be a source of fire (as I have witnessed). The fuse is another failure point and is not needed if ELCBs or RCDs are used intelligently as they are under current regs (parden the pun).

It is ridiculous to require a fused plug to protect the cord, as is the reason given for the fuse.

If the fuse is dropped from the design, it is not a great difference between the two designs.

SpaceTime · 27-05-2014 2:22pm

My only concern about 20 amp rings would be if they allowed people to derate the wiring like they do with 32A rings.

The theory is that you can feed a 2.5mm2 cable from both ends and increase its current carrying capacity as the electricity is in theory flowing two directions.

The whole point of rings was to allow thinner wiring, thus saving copper rather than to improve diversity.

I'd hope that 20A radials aren't running on 1.5mm2 cable or something!

The main flaw with rings is that if the ring is broken, you end up with 32A fusing on a circuit only capable of carrying 16A.

You've also got a problem if most of the load is at one end of the ring, as it will be unbalanced and in theory (especially if the other side is very long) you could have an overloaded half of the ring where most of the power is being drawn along the short side.

This is the main reason they're no longer allowed in kitchens - big loads all clustered.

At this stage the best option for standardising, if we were going that route would be for Ireland to adopt French sockets. They're shuttered and polarised (plug only goes in one way) and are 100% compatible with modern CEE 7 plugs.

Sam Russell · 27-05-2014 3:49pm

SpaceTime wrote: »

My only concern about 20 amp rings would be if they allowed people to derate the wiring like they do with 32A rings.

The theory is that you can feed a 2.5mm2 cable from both ends and increase its current carrying capacity as the electricity is in theory flowing two directions.

The whole point of rings was to allow thinner wiring, thus saving copper rather than to improve diversity.

I'd hope that 20A radials aren't running on 1.5mm2 cable or something!

The main flaw with rings is that if the ring is broken, you end up with 32A fusing on a circuit only capable of carrying 16A.

You've also got a problem if most of the load is at one end of the ring, as it will be unbalanced and in theory (especially if the other side is very long) you could have an overloaded half of the ring where most of the power is being drawn along the short side.

This is the main reason they're no longer allowed in kitchens - big loads all clustered.

Using thinner wire is the same as increased diversity. If every socket took the max - or even close, the CB cuts the current.

All our plug wires are the same thickness IIRC, so I doubt the wires are derated.

The ring is designed to cope with all the load at one end. Half the current comes from the left and half from the right. Always.

If the ring is broken, yes you have a problem - particularly if you do not know it is broken. Probably a fire as well, but thev ELCB should cut the current if there is a short to earth.

SpaceTime · 27-05-2014 3:55pm

That's actually not the case and has been demonstrated not to be.

If the ring is very large (common in Ireland in bungalow type homes) you can have a very long leg and a very short leg relative to the position of the load.

If you've say 30amps load sitting close to the circuit board on one side and may metres away on the other side, the shorter leg can become overheated.

Allowing the use of thinner wiring is the issue. If you'd a 2.5mm2 ring rated at 20amps this wouldn't be an issue. It might be useful in overcoming voltage drops through diversity. It's where 2.5mm is allowed to be used with 32A that you can run into possible issues where it's broken or very unbalanced.

That's the reason why multiple radials were introduced for kitchens and utilities in the new regs.

You've also got a weird reg that allows ANY number of sockets in 100m2 area. That makes no sense as you need to plan for load.

Rings and very high ampage bus circuits with fused sockets were used in France in the 1950s for similar reasons but they're long, long since obsolete and banned.

The old French system even had fused light switches so lights and sockets could share wiring.

The French reason for banning them was people bypassing fuses and causing fires.

Very few counties adopted that approach to wiring.

Here's what happens (very old badly installed DIY job socket with fuse bypassed)

http://i79.servimg.com/u/f79/11/49/44/96/imgp0411.jpg

Sam Russell · 27-05-2014 4:08pm

You would need a very long ring to produce the problems you cite.

SpaceTime · 27-05-2014 4:40pm

Basically take your typical rural/semi-urban Irish bungalow.

Put the distribution panel into the utility room next to the kitchen (common location).
Someone really skimps and puts one ring in serving a huge chunk of the house.

Dishwasher, Washing Machine (2.6kW), Dryer (2.8kW), Combination Oven (2.8kw), kettle (3kW), Dishwasher (up to 2.8kW) and various possible portable appliances like toasters, health grills, 3kW clothes irons etc could all be plugged in in that area.

All of it's within 2m of the MCB.

Then the other run of wire could be looping the full length of the house and back.

Poor design, I know, but it could happen if someone wasn't being very strategic and was just assuming it was 'fine' and particularly in the old days when totally unqualified people were allowed to do major wiring work.

You can see why radials might make a lot more sense in a house like that though.
Rings tend to be a concept that assumes a compact house with multiple stores rather than a big spread out thing as is often the layout found in Ireland.

Sam Russell · 27-05-2014 5:10pm

SpaceTime wrote: »

Basically take your typical rural/semi-urban Irish bungalow.

Poor design, I know, but it could happen if someone wasn't being very strategic and was just assuming it was 'fine' and particularly in the old days when totally unqualified people were allowed to do major wiring work.

You can see why radials might make a lot more sense in a house like that though.
Rings tend to be a concept that assumes a compact house with multiple stores rather than a big spread out thing as is often the layout found in Ireland.

Well, there you have. If you do not follow the regs and use chancers, you will get trouble whatever should have been done. You cannot have a system that can combat cowboys. Now installations must be put in be RECI qualified electricians.

SpaceTime · 27-05-2014 6:35pm

Still lots and lots of places that are far from 'to code'

tharlear · 02-06-2014 8:09pm

In China I see universal socket all the time,

Just do a search on universal electrical socket, they are as varied and as common as standards. I never leave home without my adapter, It always in my backpack.

as an example

Sam Russell · 02-06-2014 8:42pm

Universal Socket Outlets

As part of Electrical Safety First’s electrical product safety screening programme, an independent laboratory was commissioned to assess the safety implications of a sample selection of universal socket-outlets in foreseeable conditions of use where they are installed in the UK for domestic and commercial use.
The programme also considered the compliance of the sample selection to the requirements of applicable product standards, and of the legal implications of installing and using these sockets in the UK.
Five universal socket-outlets were randomly selected and purchased from online retailers (including UK suppliers). Three were switched socket-outlets.
The test laboratory found that the universal socket-outlets assessed in this investigation do not comply with the UK General Product Safety Regulations 2005, the safely requirements of the UK ‘Plug and Socket Safety Regulations 1994’ or BS 1363, or the UK’s specification for 13 A switched and unswitched socket-outlets.
Universal socket-outlets pose serious potential hazards and would not satisfy UK safety requirements. The laboratory also recommended that electricians should be alerted to the potential hazards of both domestic and commercial installation of these devices.

http://www.electricalsafetyfirst.org.uk/electrical-professionals/product-safety-unit/universal-socket-outlets/

Impetus · 02-06-2014 9:04pm

tharlear wrote: »

In China I see universal socket all the time,

Just do a search on universal electrical socket, they are as varied and as common as standards. I never leave home without my adapter, It always in my backpack.

as an example

Yet another big, clumpy device to bring (or forget to pack). Ethernet uses RJ45 everywhere.

Back in the day, Ireland used to use the Schutzkontaktplug, a la Albania, Austria, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Chile, Croatia, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Indonesia, Iran, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Republic of Macedonia, Republic of Moldova, the Netherlands, Norway, Pakistan, Portugal, Romania, Russia, Serbia, Slovenia, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Turkey, Ukraine, and Uruguay etc. Even French plugs were compatible via CEE 7/7.

For no reason, the brain dead powers that be in Ireland stumbled on the British, non standard clumpy plug with a stupid fuse (trip switches are faster and have been around for a century +). No different to the Irish "postcode" which is (ie will be) completely incompatible with the systems in use in the rest of Europe / the world.

If there is a wrong way to do things, Ireland will pick it - or copy it from GB (eg driving on the wrong side of the road (causing right-handed people - who are in the majority to have to use their left hand to operate most of the controls in the vehicle - ie those mounted on the centre of the console). Which in turn adds to the accident rate in Ireland - continentals and Americans are involved in more traffic accidents in Ireland as a result of this insular "dyslexia". Similarly I suspect Irish people have a higher accident risk when driving in mainland Europe / North America as a result.

And of course Irish road signage is completely at variance with the system employed in the rest of Europe. Even Britain has (largely) adopted the Geneva and Wien conferences on road sign standards.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vienna_Convention_on_Road_Signs_and_Signals

As a result driving in Ireland is needlessly dangerous. There is no indication as to who has priority at a junction or on a priority road. Even traffic lights in Ireland are all messed up..... one occasionally comes across flashing red lights (eg in Cork city). In the rest of Europe one has flashing amber. Back in the day I remember as a child that there used to be (American style) signs warning of corners and bends ahead in the road. They are few and far between today - American or international in terms of design.

There is no sign to indicate when one has left a city or town's limits (as is the case in most other European countries - ie the town name with a line through it). This gives a standardized indication of boundaries and helps give people a sense of direction when searching.

The "permanent government" in Ireland haven't a clue about European and international standards and couldn't care less, unless it affects their pension or "increments" etc.

Impetus · 02-06-2014 9:10pm

Sam Russell wrote: »

http://www.electricalsafetyfirst.org.uk/electrical-professionals/product-safety-unit/universal-socket-outlets/

So the rest of Europe, in the absence of following British standards are suffering from high levels of electrocution and fire damage and network failure?

All out of step except for my Johnny.....

If you take any continental European building at random, the windows and doors will be better quality (than those provided by British or Irish builders), the toilets will be better designed, the thermal insulation will be superior, the tap water will be drinkable (unlike GB/IRL), etc.

The problem with GB engineering issues is that most bright people have been lured to the city of London to make money from unproductive financial engineering games. Meanwhile the extremes of the bell curve are left to run the show.

Impetus · 02-06-2014 9:32pm

The page linked to below provides a useful overview of European road signs. For virtually every sign, the design used in Ireland is non-standard, re-invent the wheel stuff. In Ireland, furthermore, it is not consistent and many signs are clueless in their "design". eg a red circle sign means something is prohibited. Sometimes no entry is a made up arrow pointing up in the sky with a red ring around it. Others it is the normal white barrier symbol on a red background.

As in the teacher in school putting a red circle around a spelling mistake etc. Yet Ireland has red circle signs instructing drivers to turn right, left etc. Grossly, appallingly incompetent. Only to be repeated again and again in "postcodeland" and electrical connection land etc etc over and over - orchestrated by overpaid idiots....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_European_road_signs

The same applies to "postcodes", electrical sockets, etc.

All this re-invention of stuff is costing money in terms of "design costs" (joke), the price of not complying with European / international standards, and higher accident/system failure rates.

Sam Russell · 02-06-2014 9:40pm

The link says that the universal socket is not safe for use with the BS1363 plug. The vendors of these plugs actually state that the UK plug ''ís difficult to insert and remove"' so it is not suitable for UK use.

The UK plug crept into use here and was never brought in by active promotion by the Government or the ESB, but because of the ease (and lower cost) of grey importing it from the UK.

I was surprised a few years ago to discover that we still use non-metric plumbing fittings. So we use UK standards, but keep on using them when the UK moves on to another standard. Even so, B&Q sell uk plumbing fittings that are non-standard here (UK metric). What a mess. I do not know whether B&Q are aware of this.

We still use QWERTY keyboards which were designed (deliberately) to slow the typist down as the mechanism could not keep up.

In the lead up to Saorview, UK retailers were knowingly selling UK Freesat TVs that were incompatible with the Saorview signal. No action was taking against them by any Government agency.

02-06-2014 10:03pm

Impetus wrote: »

The page linked to below provides a useful overview of European road signs. For virtually every sign, the design used in Ireland is non-standard, re-invent the wheel stuff. In Ireland, furthermore, it is not consistent and many signs are clueless in their "design". eg a red circle sign means something is prohibited. Sometimes no entry is a made up arrow pointing up in the sky with a red ring around it. Others it is the normal white barrier symbol on a red background.

As in the teacher in school putting a red circle around a spelling mistake etc. Yet Ireland has red circle signs instructing drivers to turn right, left etc. Grossly, appallingly incompetent. Only to be repeated again and again in "postcodeland" and electrical connection land etc etc over and over - orchestrated by overpaid idiots....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_European_road_signs

The same applies to "postcodes", electrical sockets, etc.

All this re-invention of stuff is costing money in terms of "design costs" (joke), the price of not complying with European / international standards, and higher accident/system failure rates.

The first time I drove in Ireland I came up to one of those old style one way signs (red circle black arrow) I stopped dead! :eek::o took me a few seconds to work out that it meant the opposite to what it appears to mean.

SpaceTime · 02-06-2014 10:17pm

Sam Russell wrote: »

The link says that the universal socket is not safe for use with the BS1363 plug. The vendors of these plugs actually state that the UK plug ''ís difficult to insert and remove"' so it is not suitable for UK use.

The UK plug crept into use here and was never brought in by active promotion by the Government or the ESB, but because of the ease (and lower cost) of grey importing it from the UK.

The ESB initially preferred 16 amp Schuko as we used 220V and German style fusing and wiring. Having two incompatible standards on the Island of Ireland was also considered a bad idea.

If we still used Schuko it would still be a big issue as we're just treated as an adjunct to the UK market for distribution, however, I guess we could equally have reduced our prices for appliances because we'd have had access to distributors in France, Belgium, NL, Germany etc without any weird special versions with localised plugs.

Sam Russell wrote: »

I was surprised a few years ago to discover that we still use non-metric plumbing fittings. So we use UK standards, but keep on using them when the UK moves on to another standard. Even so, B&Q sell uk plumbing fittings that are non-standard here (UK metric). What a mess. I do not know whether B&Q are aware of this.

That's totally stupid and it means that plumbing materials here cost significantly more. I'm not even sure there is an official standard, rather just some convention that plumbers are sticking to. They should be forced to change as it would open up a whole range of fittings we don't have access to and simplify things a lot!

Sam Russell wrote: »

We still use QWERTY keyboards which were designed (deliberately) to slow the typist down as the mechanism could not keep up.

That's actually an urban myth. The layout was picked to prevent jams by placing commonly used letters in positions that avoided mechanical typewriters from hamming so when you hit say "t" followed by "h" (common in English) you didn't have two 'type arms' jumping out from positions where they'd clash. It also was a for ergonomics as it forces you to use both hands. Early keyboards didn't and people got sore fingers!

So, actually it was for speeding people up

QWERTY is also used as standard on all English language keyboards.

Sam Russell wrote: »

In the lead up to Saorview, UK retailers were knowingly selling UK Freesat TVs that were incompatible with the Saorview signal. No action was taking against them by any Government agency.

RTE spend years testing a version of DTT that was compatible with BBC's FreeView system. However, by the time they got around to launching Saorview MPEG2 was basically obsolete and HDTV was emerging as standard. For that reason they didn't use MPEG2, but instead made the whole system MPEG4. It means it uses less bandwidth for better picture quality.

We also seem to have been unable to do a deal with the UK on sharing the technical standards for FreeView so we instead joined the NORDIG group of countries which is a set of open standards for digital TV in the Nordic Countries + Ireland.

In reality a modern Freeview HD receiver will work basically fine in Ireland though as they can decode MPEG4 streams. It's only older non-HD Freeview equipment that has an issue.

http://www.nordig.org

The road signage thing is crazy though we should have adopted European road signs and I don't know why we're using our own home-brew version of North American ones! It's utterly ridiculous.

Impetus · 02-06-2014 10:23pm

Sam Russell wrote: »

In the lead up to Saorview, UK retailers were knowingly selling UK Freesat TVs that were incompatible with the Saorview signal. No action was taking against them by any Government agency.

You can go back a few years for HD TV. Under the French legal code is was illegal to sell HD TVs that did not support HD (ie MPEG4 in the DTT box) for ages. Every time I went to Ireland and I looked around for a replacement TV, the sets on offer mainly provided SD on DTT - there was virtually nothing that had MPEG4 on DTT. Until "Saorview" came around, and was persuaded not to follow British "standards" which were DTT = SD TV.

I only spend about two months a year in Ireland, so I have no intention of paying a monthly cable TV subscription. Instead I have a French DTT satellite box in IRL (which provides free to air French and rest of Europe HD/SD TV) .... no monthly fee. And I get an evening news that is not depressing (a la RTE), - le 20h news on TF1 - which covers the world - not just Ballyme***. Together with multi-language programming with a choice of listening to it in VO (English) or dubbed into French. Not to mention unlimited high audio quality music from radio stations such as http://www.br.de/radio/br-klassik/br-klassik112.html who transmit live concerts in 5.1 audio etc. Better sound quality than a CD.

SpaceTime · 02-06-2014 10:27pm

I just plug my TV straight into the satellite dish and I get a huge range of FreeSat channels in HD and SD BBC, ITV, etc and you just flick over to SaorView from a small antenna on the shelf for Irish HD and SD content (not that difficult really).

TV has an integrated satellite tuner.

Impetus · 02-06-2014 10:32pm

SpaceTime wrote: »

That's totally stupid and it means that plumbing materials here cost significantly more. I'm not even sure there is an official standard, rather just some convention that plumbers are sticking to. They should be forced to change as it would open up a whole range of fittings we don't have access to and simplify things a lot!

I bought a kitchen sink on a recent visit for the house in Ireland - a bog standard Franke 1000mm x 500 mm sink from Aarburg in Switzerland. The idiot plumber when he came did not have the pipe connectors from the probably imperial sized piping in the 200 year old house to today's norms, in his box of tricks. I had to do an extensive search to find the "interface" - and ended up in a British owned shop B&Q.

Sam Russell · 02-06-2014 10:37pm

SpaceTime wrote: »

The ESB initially preferred 16 amp Schuko as we used 220V and German style fusing and wiring. Having two incompatible standards on the Island of Ireland was also considered a bad idea.

If we still used Schuko it would still be a big issue as we're just treated as an adjunct to the UK market for distribution, however, I guess we could equally have reduced our prices for appliances because we'd have had access to distributors in France, Belgium, NL, Germany etc without any weird special versions with localised plugs.

The ESB used the German plugs, fuses, everything because it was German technology that was used to start the ESB in 1927. It was the grey imports that started the problems.

That's totally stupid and it means that plumbing materials here cost significantly more. I'm not even sure there is an official standard, rather just some convention that plumbers are sticking to. They should be forced to change as it would open up a whole range of fittings we don't have access to and simplify things a lot!

This arises because we did not follow the UK in metrication. The Irish Agrement Board decides these things, and yes, we still use half inch pipe. You look at any length of Irish plastic pipe and it has it written on the side. It has nothing to do with plumbers.

That's actually an urban myth. The layout was picked to prevent jams by placing commonly used letters in positions that avoided mechanical typewriters from hamming so when you hit say "t" followed by "h" (common in English) you didn't have two 'type arms' jumping out from positions where they'd clash. It also was a for ergonomics as it forces you to use both hands. Early keyboards didn't and people got sore fingers!

So, actually it was for speeding people up QWERTY is also used as standard on all English language keyboards.

If it was to stop the machine from jamming, is that not what I said.

RTE spend years testing a version of DTT that was compatible with BBC's FreeView system. However, by the time they got around to launching Saorview MPEG2 was basically obsolete and HDTV was emerging as standard. For that reason they didn't use MPEG2, but instead made the whole system MPEG4. It means it uses less bandwidth for better picture quality.

We also seem to have been unable to do a deal with the UK on sharing the technical standards for FreeView so we instead joined the NORDIG group of countries which is a set of open standards for digital TV in the Nordic Countries + Ireland.

In reality a modern Freeview HD receiver will work basically fine in Ireland though as they can decode MPEG4 streams. It's only older non-HD Freeview equipment that has an issue.

http://www.nordig.org

The decision to go with MPEG4 was made in 2008, long before these TVs were imported. UK TVs that are FreeviewHD are generally compatible, but they are not all. They have difficulty with summertime (or at least the one I have does). The UK standard is secret, and unpublished so who knows what is in it. The reason we went with Nordig is because Boxer (and not the RTE led lot) won the beauty contest (and they were Danish), .

Why is it with standards we tend to always back a loser.

The road signage thing is crazy though we should have adopted European road signs and I don't know why we're using our own home-brew version of North American ones! It's utterly ridiculous.

We have just introduced the widely used NO ENTRY sign. We'll get there.

Impetus · 02-06-2014 10:38pm

SpaceTime wrote: »

I just plug my TV straight into the satellite dish and I get a huge range of FreeSat channels in HD and SD BBC, ITV, etc and you just flick over to SaorView from a small antenna on the shelf for Irish HD and SD content (not that difficult really).

TV has an integrated satellite tuner.

It depends on your needs. Do you just want to watch crappy British TV, from a limited intellectual spectrum, or continent-wide TV - from a variety of cultures making up 500 million + people? The Arte channel (to take one example) is funded by both Germany and France.

http://www.arte.tv

Impetus · 02-06-2014 10:52pm

Sam Russell wrote: »

We have just introduced the widely used NO ENTRY sign. We'll get there.

I have a car that recognises street signs (eg NO ENTRY, speed limit etc) using a video camera and if you attempt to do the wrong thing, it beeps etc. I suspect it might not work (sign reading) in Ireland. Even the speed signs are non-standard. Instead of a limit (eg 50) "km/h" is appended for some reason in Ireland. I suspect this reduces the OCR recognition accuracy - in the same way as using non-numeric postcodes before the name of the town makes it harder for a mechanised system to even find the postcode on a mailing address etc (as the British Post Office found out when re-inventing the postcode wheel 30 years ago).

SpaceTime · 02-06-2014 10:57pm

Impetus wrote: »

It depends on your needs. Do you just want to watch crappy British TV, from a limited intellectual spectrum, or continent-wide TV - from a variety of cultures making up 500 million + people? The Arte channel (to take one example) is funded by both Germany and France.

http://www.arte.tv

As a French speaker, both actually.

However, the continent wide content isn't really all that useful for a predominantly English-speaking audience and the British stuff is (of course) on a different satellite cluster to everyone else, just in case it might be too convenient !

Ireland did adopt a few sensible standards though like RJ11 phone jacks instead of some utterly daft system like most European countries have.

French phone jacks look like they were designed to take about 32amps. HUGE awkward yokes.

We should have taken the opportunity to replace the road signage with European standards when the major motorway projects were underway.

In fact, starting in the 1990s would have been a good time to swap them all out. The symbols aren't that radically different, but there's no reason why the signs need to be all home-brew.

The main issue is the old red circle regulatory signs having the opposite meaning.

Impetus · 02-06-2014 11:25pm

SpaceTime wrote: »

As a French speaker, both actually.

However, the continent wide content isn't really all that useful for a predominantly English-speaking audience and the British stuff is (of course) on a different satellite cluster to everyone else, just in case it might be too convenient !

Watching TV news is the best way to expand one's linguistic range. Next to having a German mother or Japanese father etc.

SpaceTime wrote: »

Ireland did adopt a few sensible standards though like RJ11 phone jacks instead of some utterly daft system like most European countries have.

Agreed. But most "utterly daft European" country systems have been around before the RJ11 and generally have an RJ11 socket in the plug - allowing one to use an RJ11 appliance. Except for GB where their plug is too small to incorporate the RJ11 socket. I suspect it was an anti-competitive measure back in the day to stop "imported phone devices". This was certainly the case in GB where they only brought in the (non-hard-wired) connection when the first competitor arrived (Mercury).

SpaceTime wrote: »

French phone jacks look like they were designed to take about 32amps. HUGE awkward yokes.

At least 32 amps. But most of them have an RJ11 socket at the base of the plug. And they deliver a very solid connection to the PSTN. While the RJ11 is fairly universal, its basic engineering is flaky - eg the protruding clip on the top often breaks which stops it from locking into the socket. Most RJ45 connectors have similar issues. While a universal standard should be the main goal, it should be robust. Fortunately it is less of an issue now with WiFi etc. However in most hotel rooms offering RJ45 plug connectors I find have the clip broken.

SpaceTime wrote: »

We should have taken the opportunity to replace the road signage with European standards when the major motorway projects were underway.

I understand that there is a new motorway signage system in planning for Ireland to give parity to the Irish and English languages. I've only seen a brief flash of it on a TV news item on my PC - but I suspect it too is non compliant. I await the details. The German motorway road signage is superb in terms of communicating a sense of direction to the driver. Simple, clear, massive arrows etc. The French autoroute signs give one perspective - the next exit is expressed in italics, together with the following exits listed underneath in order of arrival, ending with the ultimate destination. This (in Irish terms) allows one to see that the next intersection might be Naas North, followed by Naas South (giving one the opportunity to chose the best exit) followed by Newbridge etc and Limerick or Cork as the ultimate destination.

You can compare this with the situation in GB (especially Wales) where one is inflicted with what might be a list of unknown little towns (in both English and Welsh) and no indication that the road you are on is going to London or whatever else fits in the big picture of one's view of the planet.

SpaceTime wrote: »

The main issue is the old red circle regulatory signs having the opposite meaning.

Absolutely. The design equivalent of dyslexia!

02-06-2014 11:36pm

The French have their fair share of non-standard stuff too. With analogue TV they went with SECAM and positive video modulation whereas every other country in Western Europe went with PAL and negative video modulation.

SpaceTime · 03-06-2014 12:11am

Karsini wrote: »

The French have their fair share of non-standard stuff too. With analogue TV they went with SECAM and positive video modulation whereas every other country in Western Europe went with PAL and negative video modulation.

Not to mention a different socket to the rest of Europe which was bridged by a compromise standard plug that fits both systems introduced probably in the 1970s. However there are still some French and German plugs that won't fit each oher's sockets. I know I picked up a Spanish kettle that had no hole for the French earth pin, despite being new. Had to cut the plug off and fit a French one, which when I went back to Spain didn't fit Spanish sockets as it was to the older non-harmonised spec!

German (and most of Europe's) Schuko sockets have earth clips at the top and bottom that connect with the plug, while the French ones connect the earth using a pin that sticks out of the socket into a hole in the plug.

Ireland and Britain really take the biscuit on avoiding European standardisation though.

L1011 · 03-06-2014 10:34am

SpaceTime wrote: »

That's totally stupid and it means that plumbing materials here cost significantly more. I'm not even sure there is an official standard, rather just some convention that plumbers are sticking to. They should be forced to change as it would open up a whole range of fittings we don't have access to and simplify things a lot!

The fact that we use plastic piping with copper fittings ("Qualpex" and non-branded equivalents) extremely commonly here when its all but unheard of in the UK really negates the benefit. UK chains here generally stopped trying to sell UK fittings after getting return bins full of them.

As it stands, we realistically have a metric plumbing system anyway - 15mm/22mm and so on; the minor differences between that the original 1/2" / 3/4" is compensated for by the olive on compression fittings.

SpaceTime · 03-06-2014 1:02pm

For some reason Tesco keeps stocking UK-spec DSL splitters and various other phone accessories and have been doing that for years.

They're completely useless here and don't fit the wall jack. Yet, they just keep stocking them.

SpaceTime · 03-06-2014 1:12pm

Impetus wrote: »

At least 32 amps. But most of them have an RJ11 socket at the base of the plug. And they deliver a very solid connection to the PSTN. While the RJ11 is fairly universal, its basic engineering is flaky - eg the protruding clip on the top often breaks which stops it from locking into the socket. Most RJ45 connectors have similar issues. While a universal standard should be the main goal, it should be robust. Fortunately it is less of an issue now with WiFi etc. However in most hotel rooms offering RJ45 plug connectors I find have the clip broken.

!

The British phone jack is 100% 'inspired by' RJ11 anyway. They just wanted to avoid using the AT&T developed jacks possibly to avoid paying a license but also probably to avoid competition as in the early 1980s when they were introduced the UK had a strict system preventing 'grey imports' i.e. preserving the monopoly of BT.

P&T / Telecom Eireann in Ireland adopted 'modular jacks' quite a few years before BT did and just went with the AT&T/Western Electric system as it was the most straight forward approach.

The biggest problem with the French and German type connectors though is that DC battery telephone line power can oxidise the terminals in some cases. I'd issues with this with French ones where DSL modems got weird and I discovered the terminals of the "prise gigogne" or "prise T" French phone jack had oxidised and the line was crackling!

The advantage of RJ11/45 and the BT connectors is that you've got really high quality, very solid connections that are made using very small amounts of high quality materials. The French ones are more like power connectors and suffer from issues.

France Telecom no longer installs the old Prise-T connectors anyway. They're moving to RJ45 connectors that also accept RJ11 plugs for phones.

I think that's now the ETSI recommendation which is why the new eircom jacks have an RJ45 terminal on the test socket and the DSL modem socket on the filter plates. It's just a special design of RJ45 that will properly accept RJ11 or RJ45 plugs. Same with BT, the VDSL/ADSL modems all connect with RJ connectors, not BT legacy ones.

I'd guess that'll be the standard across Europe eventually.

The old standards were definitely all about preventing competition for handsets by creating technical barriers. It's now a total irrelevance as they're dirt cheap anyway and they don't care what you plug in as long as it works!

I agree the bog standard RJ11 and RJ45 plastic connectors can be problematic if they snap off, but I guess they were sort of designed to be left connected for years at a time rather than being plugged in and out regularly.

It's a pain if you're using ethernet cables though that are being plugged in/out all the time as the clips inevitably snap off. There are high quality metal versions available though which are practically indestructible and come with tougher plastic clips that also don't act like a fishing rod when pulled through cables (which is usually I how manage to sheer them off!)

Impetus · 03-06-2014 6:23pm

SpaceTime wrote: »

Not to mention a different socket to the rest of Europe which was bridged by a compromise standard plug that fits both systems introduced probably in the 1970s. However there are still some French and German plugs that won't fit each oher's sockets. I know I picked up a Spanish kettle that had no hole for the French earth pin, despite being new. Had to cut the plug off and fit a French one, which when I went back to Spain didn't fit Spanish sockets as it was to the older non-harmonised spec!

German (and most of Europe's) Schuko sockets have earth clips at the top and bottom that connect with the plug, while the French ones connect the earth using a pin that sticks out of the socket into a hole in the plug.

Ireland and Britain really take the biscuit on avoiding European standardisation though.

While you probably could return an appliance bought in France/GermanySpain etc with a non Euro standard plug, and demand a refund, there is no such relief in IRL/GB. I have a Euro standard plug on my notebook and it works everywhere on the mainland, aside from Switzerland where the pins are skinnier - though they have the same distance apart. ie a low amp device plug would work in both Euro standard and Swiss sockets.

03-06-2014 8:50pm

SpaceTime wrote: »

For some reason Tesco keeps stocking UK-spec DSL splitters and various other phone accessories and have been doing that for years.

They're completely useless here and don't fit the wall jack. Yet, they just keep stocking them.

Someone must be buying them, otherwise they wouldn't stock them.

murphaph · 03-06-2014 9:12pm

Germans use a mixture of metric and imperial measurements for plumbing fittings as well. That tap under the sink for the washing machine or the drain cock thread on a heating system is always 1/2" and is described as such (not in mm). Zoll means inch in German.

SpaceTime · 03-06-2014 9:12pm

[Deleted User] wrote: »

Someone must be buying them, otherwise they wouldn't stock them.

Wonder if people are just not returning them...

murphaph · 03-06-2014 9:17pm

All this talk of plugs reminds me of a funny story. My mother gave my girlfriend an Irish bought electric toothbrush as a present. It was actually a German brand, Oral.B but anyway...the thing had a UK/IRL shaver socket plug fitted which to the untrained eye looks remarkably similar to a Europlug. The pins were slightly closer together on it though and my GF couldn't understand why that damn toothbrush wouldn't plug in to our sockets! I ended up cutting the plug off and fitting a Schuko plug to it.

03-06-2014 9:18pm

murphaph wrote: »

Germans use a mixture of metric and imperial measurements for plumbing fittings as well. That tap under the sink for the washing machine or the drain cock thread on a heating system is always 1/2" and is described as such (not in mm). Zoll means inch in German.

That's probably true in many countries, the fittings retain an imperial size thread and just have the olive and hole diameter (to accept the pipe) in metric.

Sam Russell · 04-06-2014 9:17am

Tyres are measured in a mixture of metric and imperial - 195/70-16R are 195mm wide and a profile of 70% to fit a wheel of 16 inch diam.

TVs are measured in inches (diagonal).

The washing machine connection uses BSP fittings (British Standard Pipe) which are universal.

SpaceTime · 04-06-2014 9:58am

murphaph wrote: »

All this talk of plugs reminds me of a funny story. My mother gave my girlfriend an Irish bought electric toothbrush as a present. It was actually a German brand, Oral.B but anyway...the thing had a UK/IRL shaver socket plug fitted which to the untrained eye looks remarkably similar to a Europlug. The pins were slightly closer together on it though and my GF couldn't understand why that damn toothbrush wouldn't plug in to our sockets! I ended up cutting the plug off and fitting a Schuko plug to it.

Yeah that's a really pointless plug too as 'Europlug' fits UK style shaver sockets anyway.
I bought my electric toothbrush while in France specifically to avoid that plug as it's really annoying to have to use adaptors to charge your toothbrush when you're on the continent.

The normal Euro plug fits my Irish bathroom socket 100% perfectly so I'm not sure why the UK is specifying that plug with the slightly fatter pins other than to be bloody awkward.

It just ends up inconveniencing UK & Irish tourists and business people when they're abroad.

Also it wouldn't fit into bathroom shaver sockets in Italy which accepted US and Australia plugs as well as European ones. So it's a real oddball standard.

I imagine some Eurosceptic must sit on whatever board insists on maintaining the standard.

murphaph · 04-06-2014 11:21am

To be honest if a directive was passed that forced all new builds to use Schuko sockets (won't happen in my lifetime) then the use of adapters for old 3 pin plugs would be pretty safe. I use a couple of them still for things like SkyNow boxes (only sold in UK) that have the power supply moulded into the 3 pin plug. Using an adapter in a Schuko socket is actually really safe because of the recessed design. It's a really solid fit and the socket itself supports the adapter, not like using adapters on flush sockets like in North America etc. where the weight invariably sees the whole lot literally hanging out of the wall. Still won't see such a directive for a very long time, though it could be done. Comparisons with driving on the right aren't valid. Such changeovers are not at all easy in comparison in any modern country with one way motorway junctions and even traffic lights all facing the wrong way. I don't think you'll ever see a developed country in this day and age switching over as the amount of infrastructure that would need to be changed overnight is immense.

SpaceTime · 04-06-2014 11:32am

Actually, one simple thing would be for the standards bodies to design safe, fully approved adaptors that go between CEE 7 and Irish/UK, Danish, Italian and Swiss plugs.

One of the issues is that adaptors largely exist in a kind of limbo between sets of regulations.

Carawaystick · 04-06-2014 2:43pm

Impetus wrote: »

I have a car that recognises street signs (eg NO ENTRY, speed limit etc) using a video camera and if you attempt to do the wrong thing, it beeps etc. I suspect it might not work (sign reading) in Ireland. Even the speed signs are non-standard. Instead of a limit (eg 50) "km/h" is appended for some reason in Ireland. I suspect this reduces the OCR recognition accuracy - in the same way as using non-numeric postcodes before the name of the town makes it harder for a mechanised system to even find the postcode on a mailing address etc (as the British Post Office found out when re-inventing the postcode wheel 30 years ago).

If your car doesn't recognise street signs in Ireland, then it doesn't recognise streetsigns. Maybe the Driver could pay attention instead of letting a machine decide.
You may or may not be aware that on the 20th Jan 2005, speed limit signs changed from imperial to metric. The km/h is to show the limit is a metric limit.
I'm unsure what you mean by non-standard signs, there is a standard, all irish speed limit signs follow it.
Speed limit signs in other countries are different
Spanish
and French
have different designs.

There are far worse readibility issues with Irish road signage than appending km/h to the speed limit signs, the 3 digit signs should be larger to include the extra digit for one thing, and theres the italic font used on signs too.

Regarding changing any plug/socket system or any entrenched standard really, there would need to be a positive cost/benefit ratio.
In any system there will be early adopter benefits and drawbacks, such as the british mpeg2 tv and mp2 radio systems vs the mp4 rte use and the aac rte could use on digital radio.

murphaph · 04-06-2014 3:00pm

Danish speed limit signs also show km/h and German ones used to for many years (there are even some patched ones in Berlin where the km/h has been blanked out, leaving the numerals offset from centre)

SpaceTime · 04-06-2014 9:53pm

Apparently the reason we adopted the BS1363 British system is pretty much the same reason that they did.

Britain's old system called BS546, the round-pin sockets, was an unbelievably complicated mess.

You'd a whole family of 100% incompatible plugs of different sizes for different ratings.

3-pin plugs in : 15amp, 5amp and 2amp versions (also a 30amp one rarely used). Each of these were the same triangular arrangement of pins, but were completely incompatible. So you couldn't say plug your radio on a 5amp plug into your socket in the kitchen which might be 15amp.

Then there was a second series of 2-pin plugs, part of the same standard specification which were completely incompatible with the 3-pin socket and again, with each other.

So, basically in a typical house you could have had up to 6 different types of incompatible sockets and people were using all sorts of combinations of adaptors.

Whoever designed it never seemed to think that people would want to move from room to room with appliances, never mind have portable ones they might take with them!

Meanwhile, Ireland had used Schuko as Irish Standard IS180 but due to grey-market imports, had also used various combinations of BS546. So you could have a house with again 3 or 4 incompatible socket systems.

To make matters worse, Schuko 2-pin 16 amp plugs mate with BS546 5amp sockets without connecting the earth.

....

The British needed to basically make a system that would be deliberately incompatible with any of their old disaster of a system as it would force people to upgrade.

The result was rectangular pins and BS1363.

Ireland effectively inherited the same problem by allowing people to install British sockets over the years, so BS1363 made sense here too as it was completely incompatible with everything else.

The last thing they wanted was a mess where you'd have earthed plugs being plugged in without connecting the earth (quite possible with Schuko plugs + old UK sockets) in an era before RCDs and lots of metal bodied appliances.

That's pretty much how it happened apparently!

Sam Russell · 04-06-2014 10:43pm

Indeed.

My uncle, a farmer, with no qualifications of any sort, wired his local village for the rural electrification in the 1950s. He did his own house, and then his neighbour's and in the end he had done them all. He did a very good job, but that was luck. No standards - or no enforcement of standards - existed at the time. As demand grew, the 13A plug came in by the back door.

The great thing at the time was electric light, pumped water into the house, and the electric kettle. Washing machines came later. Also the mains radio - no wet or dry batteries anymore.

One old women when she saw the electric kettle boiling (it was sitting on the floor) said "Í never thoght I would see a kettle boil on a carpet!" It was magic.

Normally, a 15 amp plug in the kitchen was loaded with an adapter that took a 15 A and two 5 A plugs - kettle, radio, and a spare. A house would only have a few plugs, maybe 2 or 3.

Electricity was charged at different rates depending on its use. Lights were more expensive than power, but I'm not sure of the details.

Empire o de Sun · 20-06-2014 8:34pm

murphaph wrote: »

Germans use a mixture of metric and imperial measurements for plumbing fittings as well. That tap under the sink for the washing machine or the drain cock thread on a heating system is always 1/2" and is described as such (not in mm). Zoll means inch in German.

It may refer to 1/2", this is because the BS thread has been adapted as the standard for pipe thread in most places (except in North America). ISO 7 or EN 10226

20 mm pipe will have a 1/2" thread, often written as R 1/2 (external taper) or G 1/2 (external parallel)

Depending on the standard, 1/2" pipe isn't 1/2" (12.7 mm)
20 mm pipe has an outside diameter of 20 mm

Both 1/2" and 20 mm pipe are also referred to as DN15 (nominal diameter 15 mm)

Richard · 03-08-2014 9:00pm

murphaph wrote: »

Danish speed limit signs also show km/h and German ones used to for many years (there are even some patched ones in Berlin where the km/h has been blanked out, leaving the numerals offset from centre)

And as well all know, the km/h in Ireland was mainly to help distinguish from the previous signs in miles per hour.

Electrical plugs (Split from National Postcodes to be introduced)

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