mini-receptacles

[clare]

Many LED Christmas lights ARE polarized. So are many lamps. Double insulated devices are the onlyones that can get away without polarized plugs and MOST wall warts fall into that category. More and more double insulated tools are also getting polarized plugs, at least here in Canada. It is legal to sell these load devices without polarized plugs, but at least in Canada there are no non-polarized 2 promg outlets that pass CSA standards or ULC (Underwriters Labs Canada) certification - and without one or the other they cannot be legally sold here. Don't know for sure about the USA, but suspect the same is true there.

[gfretwell]

Two things trigger a polarized plug and they are;

Screw shell lamp holders, the shell has to be connected to the neutral. 2 pin lamps like the small series lights don't. Single pole switches, the switch must open the hot side, if the switch is 2 pole or no switch, you don't need a polarized plug.

[clare]

BUT - ALL outlets must be either polarized or 2 prong grounded. No ifs, ands or buts. Because nobody knows what someone will try to connect to it. Hasn't been a non-polarized / ungrounded receptacle approved for sale in North America for something well on over 10 years. Yes, you still find the occaisional non-approved Chi-junk products offered for sale - but less and less every year. Now it's just stuff that looks like it should/could pass inspection, with fake inspection stickers - - - - .

[gfretwell]

If the receptacle rejects a polarized plug, (2 narrow slots) it is still legal.

Things that get inspected (permanently installed devices) will have the polarized spec, simply because that is all they sell.

As an inspector, I can not reject a listed non polarized 2 pin receptacle if it rejects polarized plug. U/L listings do not expire. You may still see these in remodels if the wiring was not updated to a grounding wiring method.

That is why they created the wider pin on the 1-15 plug in the first place, so the older non-polarized receptacle would reject them.

[clare]

Which means the old listed stuff can still be sold, but virtually nothing non-polarized or non-grounded has been listed in the last 10 or more years. You are not seeing much old product still being made and sold - most of the old manufacturers are not building the old stuff, and a lot of the companies that made this sruff don't exixt any more.

[gfretwell]

So it is not "illegal" it is just not always available. I guarantee you can still buy Christmas light strings with non polarized plugs and receptacles on the other end. Just l;ook at the ones that do not have screw shell lamp holders.

[Michael Moroney]

When I was a kid, we had a summer cottage that 5 two-blade outlets in a device that fit in a one gang box.

Only the small lamp cords would fit (without blocking one or more of the outlets), but they did exist.

[Josh]

That's the key -- while it's fun to argue the semantics of what's legal/illegal, listed/non-listed, in the end, those old very skinny non-polarized plugs, while some may exist, simply aren't very common anymore -- virtually every one I can see in my house has the wide skirt, even if (like the laptop cord I just pulled out to check) the blades themselves are not polarized.

Nobody makes the old tight-pitch adapters because they wouldn't fit

95% of the cords in peoples' houses, so there simply isn't enough demand to make them, even if they are/were legal. They may also not want the liability of people trying to jam the new plugs into the narrow spacing, leaving the blades exposed.

Josh