Phone charger from China has two identical pins

[John4]

I purchased a phone from China. It came with a Chinese charger and travel adapter for the UK. The adapter obviously is not the safest thing around, it even has a sleeved earth pin. Fortunately the phone charger doesn't require earth.

I do not understand which type of plug the Chinese charger is. It has two identical flat pins with no indication which is live and which is neutral.

I will attach a picture of the plug and adapter.

Is is possible this type of charger is polarity reversible?

 

[Ragnar_AT]

Very few electrical items these days actually rely on fixed L - N polarity. Edison-base floor and table lamps come to my mind but not much else. The phone charger very likely rectifies the AC and couldn't care less.

However, the entire design is horribly unsafe and shouldn't have been sold to you. The adaptor is unfused and designed to accept just about any kind of mains plug known to mankind (at the expense of not making proper contact with any of them) and the charger itself has un-shrouded pins, which is clearly a risk of electric shock. I wouldn't even think of using it!

 

[EFLImpudence]

The UK is only polarity specific because the plugs have a fuse which must be in the Line(live) conductor.

 

[RandomGrinch]

Big Clive doesn't call them death-dapters for nothing!

 

[John4]

Very few electrical items these days actually rely on fixed L - N polarity. Edison-base floor and table lamps come to my mind but not much else. The phone charger very likely rectifies the AC and couldn't care less.

However, the entire design is horribly unsafe and shouldn't have been sold to you. The adaptor is unfused and designed to accept just about any kind of mains plug known to mankind (at the expense of not making proper contact with any of them) and the charger itself has un-shrouded pins, which is clearly a risk of electric shock. I wouldn't even think of using it!

I completely overlooked the lack of fuse. I decided not to use it because of the sleeved earth pin as it was a red flag to me that whoever designed it must have little knowledge of type G plugs.

The UK is only polarity specific because the plugs have a fuse which must be in the Line(live) conductor.

Thinking about it I have a Braun toothbrush which came with a type C to type G fused adapter.

Big Clive doesn't call them death-dapters for nothing!

I will bin this adapter, luckily I knew better than to use it.

I believe the charger is a actually just a type A plug with two live sized pins for reversibility made for North America and China.

While type A plugs are obviously not as safe as type C, F and G, I think I will just invest in a better quality type A to G adapter with a fuse fitted. I know this is not ideal.

I do not plan on using it near children. Other than the lack of fuse and type A pins not being sleeved, are there any other concerns I should look out for?

 

[EFLImpudence]

I see the video is seven years ago so nothing has been done to improve matters.

 

[EFLImpudence]

with two neutral pins

 

[John4]

What I meant was both of the pins are live sized so it can go either way.

After looking up the type A plug, they have a bigger neutral pin if they are "polarized".

 

[EFLImpudence]

Why would they want a polarized two pin plug?

 

[John4]

Why would they want a polarized two pin plug?

Why plug is polarized in the US? What are the benefits?

I could not get a good hold of it, I searched online quite a bit. This must have to do with safety but then non-polarized switches are used through out the world with no issues are risks, so my que...

electronics.stackexchange.com

 

[plugwash]

An american style plug with both pins the same size is not "wrong" per-se.

That said the questions going through my mind would be.

1. Why are they shipping a charger with an american style plug to a European market in the first place?
2. Why are they shipping a charger to the west which is marked only in Chineese?
3. Why is there no CE mark?
4. Given it's a US style charger, why are there no markings from approvals bodies that are recognised in the USA?
5. Why did they ship it with an adapter that is blatently not compliant with any reasonable electrical safety standard and is marked (for export only*)?

If the things you can see are so blantantly wrong, can you have any confidence that the parts you can't see are safe?

* My understanding is this translates as "it's so **** it's not even allowed to be sold in China".

 

[securespark]

Why not use a UK phone charger with the same output?

 

[flameport]

I do not understand which type of plug the Chinese charger is.

It's a plug that is used in China.

Is is possible this type of charger is polarity reversible?

All AC devices with 2 pins are.

 

[Ragnar_AT]

The US commonly use polarised plugs for things like Edison base lights. ES26 sockets leave scary amounts of screw thread exposed, so you‘d definitely want to make sure that’s the neutral. Back in the day they even had non-earthed toasters with single-pole switches so depending on the orientation of the plug the filaments could be live even if the toaster was off. I haven‘t been to the US in a while but I think most plugs these days are polarised, even if technically unnecessary.

 

[ericmark]

I use one of the adaptors with the two prong USA plug on a regular basis, it is plugged into an extension lead, so there is a fuse in the extension leads plug, and it never leaves my bedroom as the radio it charges needs a licence to use it, and only I have a licence so it is not put anywhere some untrained unlicensed person to gain access to it.

All three of the adaptors shown would take the USA style plug, only the one to left is fused and only one to right is not shuttered. We have had unfused and non shuttered shaver adaptors for as long as I can remember

there is a screw so maybe it has a fuse, but don't think so, in the main USA stuff was 120 volt 60 Hz so we could not use it anyway, but the switch mode power supply has resulted in more stuff designed for USA even if made in China which can also work here, the rest of Europe use reversible plugs in the main, as they don't have a fuse in the plug. This adaptor does have the earth, but many don't, but in the UK we are not permitted to sell items with an plug in adaptor, these are held onto the original plug with a screw so are permitted, but these in theroy are not, even though nothing really wrong with them.