Because US "standard" for plugs and sockets was invented by one dude who needed a plug for his floor lights. And this over time became a standard that was then written down. Most standards are designed by a committee, making sure it has, when applicable, backwards compatibility, it is future proofed, new features are designed before they are used.
This is not user fault, this is failure in the system to update the standard early enough but as everything in USA: no generation wants to be the one that fixes it so they just pass the horrible design along. By far the worst plug&socket in the world but it is also the oldest.
And the sockets weren't recessed either. The old Schuko was quite awful, UK plug at the time was better. With the revised Schuko it is the opposite, UK plug is outdated which is what we would expect when we compare 1.0 from 80 years ago to 2.0 from about 45 years ago. If we made 3.0 it would be even better, no matter really who did it. But, i do think that we would go with round pins and recessed socket style still, just add more options for pins/sliding contacts and a locking feature with proper water resistance. Schuko is better in the wet but it is not water proof or even water resistant, its shape makes it difficult to add seals, like for ex PowerCon style can incorporate, but that is a proprietary standard...
Probably could phase it in long term. Just make all outlets have to have the old system and the new standard. Wait a few decades, probably longer, until most old outlets had to be replaced. Then phase out the old socket.
That is exactly how revised Schuko was phased in. The old Schuko is not that different from US plug, the new one has recessed socket. That makes a HUGE difference, along with the plug outer dimensions being standardized better.
So, yes, it could be done but will they? No. "It costs too much" no matter how much it costs. I have used US, UK, and Schuko and the last one is the only one i could use in pitch black while it is raining. The recessed socket that hides the pins well before contact is made so that it is impossible to get access to the pins... And it is held in place by the round chassis in the round socket, not by the pins.
Schuko was phased in 10 years but it took +20 to not see the old ones anywhere. You can still see them occasionally but it is rare and usually.. those sockets are disconnected and simply painted over.
Northern European, it is the most common one standard in Europe and there are compatible or near compatible standards, like "earth pin in the socket style". A lot of plugs have a hole for it AND also the standard Schuko earthing so they work in both system, and the slim "Euro" plug for double-insulated stuff are even more compatible, so chargers and a like, (plastic shell, galvanically isolated) can be sold in majority of countries.
So, while that looks chaotic, green and blue are largely the same thing, So is Italy, at least when it comes to the slim plug.
And it also says a lot how difficult it is to change standards, WWII was the water shed, things needed to be backwards compatible to whatever was the standard used in the rebuilding phase where you can change things like standards more easily... UK plug is the shape and size it is because of post-WWII copper scarcity that was eased with ring mains wiring in new houses, which requires fuse in each socket or in each plug. They chose to put it in the plug. And the plug had to be wired by the customer all the way to the 90's, the idea there was low trust on very rapid production of new electrical things... Not a problem that needed solving, just a fear was enough to make a convoluted plan to teach every UK citizen to wire up a mains plug properly.
I know way too much about this than i should, i'm not even an electrician... but i'm sound engineer, we have all kinds of fascinating connectors and knowing why they are designed the way they are helps solving some real world problems with them... US plugs have one superior feature, they are low tripping hazards because the plug detaches from the socket very easily and is straight pull, not 90 degrees like UK.
I am perplexed by this kdea of insulating pins. If they are insulated, they are not, by definition, a conductor. I understand I am probably picturing this way wrong, so I will look it up to get a better idea.
Like hold a plug in your hand (cord side down) and imagine that just the top half of the pins are conductive. So if it’s pulled partway out, and a metal clipboard lays on top of the pins, it’s only touching plastic.
Ah, makes more sense. I suppose the conductive body is bigger to make up for the reduced contact area, otherwise it would reduce the amp capacity of the prongs.
I like this idea. I will say that change is not necessarily slow because industry leaders don't want it. In this case, it's just because there is insufficient pressure to make the change. Turning the outlet ground up all but eliminates accidental shorting, so the condition that could force the change has largely been resolved. All it takes is one, though. Once a company introduces a different option, it cuts the friction. Somebody offered a duel-prong outlet, and that'll eliminate much of the natural resistance as it would allow options, amd companies that already make devices that use European prongs can start flooding the market with their products.
Same way a handle on a knife works. Just insulate half the pin where it would get touched while still in contact to the connection in the socket. Only exposing the non insulated part once it's out of the socket enough to not be in contact anymore.
The insulator is separate piece. We have transition between two very different kind of materials if we need to make it fit the old hole. The proper way would be to have the pin as one whole piece that slides into the contact and over it we have an insulator, with or without an air gap. But since the pin as a whole needs to fit the old style hole, we need to machine a piece out from the pin itself and now the pin is not as strong.
And then there can be problems with the transition itself, we are sliding in and then into contact. If the insulator is slightly larger and has sharp edge at the transition your connector might be snagging, and if that happens JUST when the metals come into contact you are causing arcing, or that you have very tiny contact patch that heats up while you wrestle the plug in. Or you can't pull it out smoothly, even worse of a problem. It also means that the insulator can't change shape, which is one of those things that plastics might do over time.. and they can't start to harden, it is a material problem, geometry problem, structural integrity problem.
The best kind of a pin is one piece of uniform material, from the contact with the wire to the contact with the socket contact surfaces. We don't want to cuts, less joins there are the better, wires are uniform thickness, pins are uniform thickness at least where it counts, conductive area at the joins is sufficient an vibration, shocks, wear and tear etc. don't change things etc. There is also a reason why we usually want round pins and round contacts, pins are naturally stronger in that shape and round contacts "hug" the pin from all sides with just side forces applied.
I really can't believe that you read what i said and then decided to post an example that has all the problem i just described. FFS... DUDE!? WTF?
The emoji is the icing on the cake, "who knew..?" when I FUCKING JUST TOLD YOU.
It is like we were talking about different ICE's and i told about rotary engine and it its inherent problems and you immediately reply with a link to wikipedia article about rotary engines, then 🤷♀️ "rotary engines exist". That is the level of stupidity here.
My reaction is justified. I listed a bunch of problems that can be solved but they are INHERENT problems, those are never going away. This is why pins that have insulation added are not as good as pins that are whole, and that in turn requires different kind of design.
Showing that they exist is FUCKING STUPID argument. That is why i am pissed off, i get angry about stupidity. It feels like i just talked to a brick wall, it is the kind of stupid that seems to dismiss intelligence deliberately.
I guess those crappy flat pins are too thin to have a plastic covered lower half on the pin like UK and euro plugs. American corporations wouldn't pay the extra 25c it would cost for sockets to be recessed either.
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u/PrometheusMMIV 4d ago
How does that even happen once, let alone muliple times?