I am trying to buy a single socket for one of those standard 2-pin European (French) plugs which are commonly used on table lamps and such. These have the same size pins and spacing as the round 10 amp plugs but are slimmer and have 'triangular' ends. I think they're rated at 2.5 amps.
I know the plug will fit in a bigger round socket or in a German Schuko socket but I'd prefer to find one specifically for the smaller plugs so that a big round one won't fit.
I want one that will flush mount if possible, I don't have much clearance available where it's going to be installed.
But that will stick out too far and anyway it's not going to be connected to a 13 amp circuit.
Who said this was going to be in the UK? :-)
The shave socket *isn't* the same anyway, it is a "5 amp 2-pin" socket and, while a euro two pin will fit into it the pins are thinner than the socket is designed for.
It's not to "replace a 13A UK socket", I'd have said if it was. The above converter will project far too much, that's why I specifically said a flush mounted socket. I already have a surface mount one and that just sticks out too far.
That's pretty similar to the standard round French ones in terms of how it works with a 2-pin plug, something like it will do if I can't find anything better.
Won't what I thought was a Europlug fit a 13 amp socket if you can open the shutters? And be OK for its rated load?
There was something else called a Euro Facilities plug. Only one I ever saw was an aux power socket on a Jap power amp. Which switched with the amp. Came in two and three pin.
"There is no socket defined by EN 50075; neither is there a socket specified in CEE 7 to accept only the Europlug. Instead, the Europlug was designed to be compatible with a range of sockets in common use in Europe. These sockets, including the CEE 7/1, CEE 7/3 (German/"Schuko"), CEE 7/5 (French), and most Israeli, Swiss, Danish and Italian sockets, were designed to accept pins of various diameters, mainly 4.8 mm but also 4.0 mm and 4.5 mm, and are usually fed by final circuits with either 10 A or 16 A overcurrent protection devices.[8] To improve contact with socket parts the Europlug has slightly flexible pins which converge toward their free ends. "
From that page the CEE 7/1 socket looks the most similar. Is this a situation where you would only provide 2.5A (from your boat's inverter perhaps) and so you want to discourage fullsize Schuko or French plugs?
Given there is no official matching socket, I think you'd need to provide either a French or Schuko socket. I would probably lean towards Schuko, since the large Earth prong on French sockets can foul some adapters.
(although adapters also tend to over-bend the earth spring on Schuko sockets, so neither is great)
I would avoid Swiss as their hexagonal shape blocks a lot of plugs and adapters; the Danish ones look OK if you never need an earth; not sure about Israeli.
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worth looking at.
I don't think that's feasible: the plug is *designed* to fit in a wide variety of sockets.
The other issue will be to find a matching backbox, if the size and screw positions don't match between the different types.
If this is for your boat, I'd be tempted to stick with the local system. Means it'll be easier to fix if something needs replacing, and you're not stuck with a backbox cutout for a peculiar foreign system.
I just tried a europlug into 13A socket, and it's about 2mm too narrow. On the other end of the europlug lead was a C13, so I was reminded how perfectly those fit into an XLR mic :-)
Apart from a 2.5A device being protected by a 32A MCB on a ring?
To be fair to the previous poster, these euro adapter plugs leave the europlug pointing downwards (vertically) so I'm not sure the protrusion would be any greater than the europlug itself pointing horizontally.
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