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  1. I think whatever colour the live wire is: red, brown, black or grey, depending on country and application, anyway the blue should be only used for neutral and green or yellow or both for earth – on the whole Earth! I can't stand DYIers or pseudo-electricians using green-yellow as live 🙄

  2. We still don't have the plastic protectors in the US. I zapped myself once using my finger to guide my charger into the outlet in the dark. felt weird, wasn't painful but still felt really bad.

  3. In Sweden, we have yellow/green as earth (yes, combo color). Brown for phase 1, blue for neutral. Black is phase 2 and grey is phase 3. White is switched leg (or what you call it in English). And… a few more colors depending on… Add to that the old installations that might differ, especially before 1970. And also some difference even up to 2002. Prohibited colors are yellow and green since they can be mistaken for earth.

  4. Here in the north American continent we believe in the darwin awards fully. Also we use 120v ac instead of 240v so it is somewhat safer but again you mess with something without knowing darwin will give you your award.

  5. USA utility color code standard… Black – Red – Blue for line wires at 120-240 volt single phase/delta 3 phase with center tap or 120-208 volt 'Y' 3 phase. Brown – Orange – Yellow for line wires at 240-480 volt Delta 3 phase (240 volt if center tapped) or 277-480 volt 'Y' 3 phase. White or Grey for Grounded Conductor (Neutral/center tapped/current carrying conductor). Green or bare copper for Grounding Conductor (ground fault current only). Most high voltage utility power distribution lines around homes are 7200/12470 volts 'Y' 3 phase. Homes will have a 3 wire feed/4 wire panel (Neutral and Grounding wire are bonded at main panel) 240 volts single phase with a 120 volts to Neutral center tap. All homes will have both 120 volts and 240 volts. Confusing? Yes! Don't get me started on "Open Delta, center tap, 3 phase", you'll have 240 volts 3 phase with 120, 208, and 240 volts single phase, while using only 2 transformers with a 4 wire feed, and you can't use B phase to Neutral.

  6. 2:18 it's dangerous to wire your ground to the neutral wire because if the neutral will fail during a storm or something like that your grounded object will become live

  7. Somebody's probably already said this but US color code is White = neutral, green or bare copper = ground and black red blue are phase colors. It's supposed to be for color blindness but or something I do enjoy working on European stuff where blue is neutral and Brown is… you know….

    Thankfully Canada our neighbor has the more or less the same color standards swapping blue and read as primarys leading the black somewhere else. I can't remember if it's still a phase color but Wikipedia has a great chart.

  8. The US has also not adopted GFCI's or as the rest of you know RCDs as universally. We started with them and wet locations like bathrooms and kitchens and outdoors and a handful of other locations have been added on but for the most part it has not become standard on every circuit nor has it been introduced across the entire panel at the incoming lines. We are definitely behind in that regard other there's a big push for arc fault in the latest code revisions however they're so expensive that electricians/inspectors will rent them out to pass inspections and then switch back to standard breakers. There's also questions about whether they actually do anything, especially at the ridiculous price. If it's properly installed it shouldn't be a problem. The plugs are more or less the way they have been designed for years with the screws on the sides although the GFCI's tend to have them recessed better and it is common practice to put electrical tape around as extra protection especially in metal boxes from the accidental shifting just in case.

  9. The fuse plug is for protecting the flex from the plug to the appliance and somewhat the appliance, it is a lingering thing that has stayed from the adoption of 13A ring circuits……

  10. We really do need sleeved pins on our plugs in the usa, we had a big thing last couple years with kids putting pennies between the cell phone chargers and wall outlets. We only recently with the I wanna say 2019 NEC got tamper resistant outlets with the shutters to keep you from putting things in finally although some of them are so badly designed that you can't even get a plug to go in. I have this lady who pretty much calls me whenever she needs to plug something in because it's that bad edit: (I forgot to say it's a new build apartment and I think they got really cheap outlets).

  11. The UK really also only protects the cable; devices often have an additional fuse in them not last because they're being sold to global markets and the only difference for the British market is the plug. The BS-mandated fuse became necessary because British installations have few ring circuits unlike the rest of the world which largely uses a larger number of radial circuits. To deliver the same power the small er number of circuits need to carry a larger current. Fuses up to 32A are stanard The appliance lead has a smaller crosssection so a smaller fuse is required to protect the lead. Because the pins of the plug may carry the full current of the circuit, they're sized for that current.
    It all starts with one design choice – all the rest follows.
    For comparison, my house in Germany has three consumer units each larger than than a comparable house in the UK would have but all MCBs are 16A; the only high-power appliance is the hob with 3 × 16A 3-phase and a CEE 90609 3 × 16A wallsocket. Which people in this region often use for circular saws for firewood.

    Red for the live wire in Australia makes sense? Somebody in Germany's past did disagree; however the old colouring scheme used decades ago was using red for neutral. For the records, I'm with you on this one, red usually ise used to signal danger so why on earth should it be neutral? I've seen orange and purple leads in Swiss installations. As colourful as a child's dream birthday party!

  12. 2:26 too bad the americans and canadians dont have whole building gfci like we do so it'll only trip if it bridges across live and neutral or if its plugged into a special gfci port

  13. That's why good meters have probe detection and will scream at you if you switch it to any other setting than amps, while having the lead plugged into the amp socket

  14. German color code for single phase AC: brown for L1, blue for neutral and yellow/green for PE (ground). (Older wiring might have a different color for L1, like red or black, but blue and yellow/green usually stays the same)
    German color code for 3 phase AC: brown for L1, black for L2, gray for L3, blue for neutral and yellow/green for PE.
    DC uses red as power and black as ground (which seems to be an international standard…sort of).

  15. It's not just the country but the voltage. On DC automotive systems the black is the ground, but never in AC. (see National Electrical Code color codes).

  16. I am an industrial control electrician. Whenever I am troubleshooting electrical problems and end up with an audience (production folks have nothing better to do when their equipment is down), few things are funnier than throwing some big sparks and watching their reactions. Especially if you fake getting shocked.

  17. 4:57 Quick scrolled and…. nobody's said it. So here goes nothing: US plugs are screwed up BY INSTALLERS, and have been since…. ever. Literally. The design fell prey to anthropomorphism. What does that mean? The socket looks like a face, so obviously installing it that way is correct, right? Wrong. The original design was to have the ground lug on top, which is why it's rounded, longer, and sturdier than the blades; it's the tension member of the triad, and anything conductive that falls on a partially inserted plug should roll off without making contact to the blades, or will short a blade directly to ground and trip the breaker on that circuit (which were, and sometimes still are, only 10A circuits… mostly 15A recently, 117V).

  18. 14:15 in late 1930's early 1940 countries were supposed to set an international standard, but there was an Austrian artist ruling Germany who decided to invade the countries around it and then some more who postponed the meeting indefinitely.

  19. With that British plug one, apparently he knocked out power to the entire hotel. 😆 Presumably they just needed to reset a breaker, but still a bit disruptive. To say nothing of having to replace the face plate or the outlet in his room.

  20. In the states, both red and black are live. Red cuz red is bad. Black because black is death. In America it's black n white because red dye was expensive when these ancient standards were made.

  21. I actually stuck a knife in a toaster once
    The lights went out and I saw a bunch of nice sparks in the toaster between the filaments next to the pita that had got stuck. Also sparked an idea, thought it might not have been the smartest thing to do; trying to get my pita out using a steak knife.
    Figured best to not try that again with the toaster running
    It's hard to catch when it does anyway.

    Was very happy afterwards though when I reset the breaker the toaster still worked, well yeah and my heart. My mom would've gone mental.

  22. I am totally with you. There are some thing, that have to be Internationally Standardized. In Germany we have Brown OR Black = Live, Blue = Neutral and Green with yellow stripes for Earth. In really old Kabels there might be Red für Live.

  23. Part of the reason for UK plugs having fuses in them is due to ring circuits. Which are generally on 32amp breakers and so the plugs are fused to protect the cable going from the plug to the appliance. Otherwise say in the case of a table lamp with small gauge wire if that wire shorts. It may not be enough to trip the 32amp breaker.

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