Why South Africa is changing its plug standard

[Jamie McKane]

Why South Africa is changing its plug standard

South Africa's slow migration from its old triangular plug and socket system to the newer, slimmer, six-sided ZA Plug will help cut down on the number of adapters people need to have in their homes.

This is just one of the many benefits of switching to the new standard, the South African Bureau of Standards (SABS) has stated.

 

[phoneJunky]

“I think when people see this [compact three-pin plug] it makes sense because we can have up to five of these on one plate.”

I have 6 on mine? Is that not allowed anymore?

 

[We Love Bass]

We changing number plates,we changing plugs just not the cabinet.

 

[backstreetboy]

Because someone got a tender...

 

[Enzo Matrix]

Tldr

No reason is given

 

[CPTBoy]

Because money

 

[Willie Trombone]

 

[Jet-Fighter7700]

Because money

what other valid reason is there?

 

[Rocket-Boy]

Wait, this must be at least the 5th article in a few weeks about this. Still the same info, still the same pointless change to a standard that no one uses.

 

[PhireSide]

While I think this is probably more bureaucracy than anything else, it would be nice to have all the plugs around the house be similar and using the new SA spec and Euro spec. Sometimes the current plugs are oddly shaped so you end up having to take the left plug out to get the right one out, because it has a lip or something silly

 

[pinball wizard]

@rpm Why do your bots churn out this topic at least once a week lately?

 

[RandomGeek]

On this topic - is it still socially acceptable to talk of Plugs and Sockets? It's 2020 for crying out loud, everything should be gender neutral!

 

[JohnStarr]

Sjoe, another weekly updated article about why we are getting new plugs. Slow week.

 

[CommonSense]

View attachment 945538

The benefits of the bottom one is obvious: You can switch off the one you don't want to consume power, but leave the other one on.... without having to pull something from the socket.

Also. All my extension leads and whatnot will be useless if I switch away from the old standard.

The article still doesn't answer the real question: What is the real advantage of spending a lot of money to change over to a whole new standard. And having 4/5/6 on one plate is not really incentive enough.

 

[Danie_V]

I would have written the headline more like "SA is first country to adopt international standard for plugs". For it's a great move as many of my devices are two prong so these will fit in fine and the old three pin plugs wasted tons of space. Something few mention is two prong plugs are great from a safety perspective in terms of being able to be pulled straight out by the cable in an emergency - no ways that happens with the old three prong plugs. There is good reason for having international standards and interoperability should be supported. Hopefully other countries adopt the standard over time too.

 

[elf_lord_ZC5]

Awesome logic, wonder who the benefactor is, not that it matters.

 

[km2]

By the time it became clear that Europe was not going to adopt the IEC standard, South Africa was already too invested in it.

Surely we aren't that committed to the transition that we can't just call the whole thing off? What percentage of homes have these new plugs, vs how many existing homes will still be inconvenienced by the transition. Wouldn't it still be a win to get out of this while we can?

 

[Jan]

@rpm Why do your bots churn out this topic at least once a week lately?

There was a (Zoom / Teams) media event hosted a few weeks ago by the SABS to go through what has been added to the standard in the last year, and answer questions. This article was based on Campetti's answers to one of my questions.

Rather than bombard the site with all of the articles, all at once, we've published them over the course of a few weeks. Either way there would have been complaints, but this way it's not information overload at least.

 

[phoneJunky]

The benefits of the bottom one is obvious: You can switch off the one you don't want to consume power, but leave the other one on.... without having to pull something from the socket.

Also. All my extension leads and whatnot will be useless if I switch away from the old standard.

The article still doesn't answer the real question: What is the real advantage of spending a lot of money to change over to a whole new standard. And having 4/5/6 on one plate is not really incentive enough.

I do have a few of the new standard plugs installed with switches. But the 6 socket one doesn't have switches which I don't really need at my entertainment area.

You don't need to change over, but I found it worth while. I don't have multiplugs in my house anymore. The plugs and sockets were (are) cheaper than the old ones. It is safer (you can pull out the cable easy enough and the holes isn't big enough for children to put their fingers in).

 

[pinball wizard]

The benefits of the bottom one is obvious: You can switch off the one you don't want to consume power, but leave the other one on.... without having to pull something from the socket.

Also. All my extension leads and whatnot will be useless if I switch away from the old standard.

The article still doesn't answer the real question: What is the real advantage of spending a lot of money to change over to a whole new standard. And having 4/5/6 on one plate is not really incentive enough.

Not to mention all my existing appliances and power tools that have the existing 3 pin plug on them.