Plastic earth pin sheared off

[xerxes]

My daughter has just returned from a short holiday with her young child, and has presented me with the plug-in nightlight she took with them. The plastic 'earth pin' has sheared off.

This makes me wonder if there is a socket outlet somewhere in Yorkshire with the shutters held open by a piece of plastic.

It also makes me wonder if this is a common occurrence, and if so if plastic pins are a possible safety hazard.

 

[Spark123]

Have seen it happen with the wall wart type supplies before, yes it will be a problem especially when some numpty doesn't bother to look why the vacuum cleaner won't plug in and forces it!
Also yes, on some makes of socket it will hold the shutters open.

 

[hairyben]

aye, the plastic becomes brittle from the heat and breaks quite easily, common complaint, i must get a dozen or so a year.

Sometimes you can fish the pin out with small screwdriver/nosey pliers.

or maybe sockets should come with eject buttons.

 

[Adam_151]

On a similar note, I came across this site recently: http://www.fatallyflawed.org.uk/ ... I had long known that child saftey covers were unnecessary on shuttered BS1363 outlets, but I didn't realise that they were as easily abused to open the shutters as that site proves

Another thing those plastic nightlights have in common is that they come from abroad, and sometimes the quality control and even the design leave a lot to be required (see the bottom section on this page: http://bigclive.com/fibre.htm )

 

[timtheenchanter]

snapped a few off wall warts before now, the cheapo multi voltage ones are the worst, drop it once and...

hey, I once had the cable installer come round with his power tool charger, he then wedged open the shutter with a bit of match so it would plug in. unfortunatly this was before I had the nerve to say somthing!

 

[RF Lighting]

I think I'll sdtick to my MK sockets without those stupid covers.

I've noticed a couple appear in our house, which I shall now go and destroy.

 

[plugwash]

On a similar note, I came across this site recently: http://www.fatallyflawed.org.uk/ ... I had long known that child saftey covers were unnecessary on shuttered BS1363 outlets, but I didn't realise that they were as easily abused to open the shutters as that site proves

Unfortunately that site don't provide any pics of the device in question unplugged.

The ones we had when I was a kid had full length pins and were pretty hard to pull out. but a lot of modern ones seem to only have very short live and neutral pins making this kind of abuse all too easy.

More cheap imported ****e I guess.

 

[kai]

On my sockets, I have used MK safetysockets, as they need all three pins to be present, before releasing the shutters, and of course, every socket is on a 30mA RCD nowadays.

 

[ban-all-sheds]

Oh yes - every one.

 

[Spark123]

I have one

 

[ban-all-sheds]

I have lots.

And 2 that aren't (well - one 2-gang)

 

[Spark123]

I meant I have one socket which is RCD protected in my garage. The rest aren't.

 

[mattylad]

I can remember sticking broken plastic earth pins back on, using a soldering iron.

Stunk to high heaven for a while but the buggers stayed put (albeit slightly shorter).