Legacy microphone connectors

and that, too.

Not so big as 15amp 3pin, though. ;-)

But yes, 3 pin XLRs are miles cheaper than any of the others due to bulk production.

I yield to your knowledge - certainly, the pins were thicker - though I think the overall volume occupied was similar (the body didn't have to incorporate a fuseholder).

Common fallacy there: Shuko is _not_ 2 pin. Oh, hang on - I suppose it _is_ 2 *pin*; however, it is 3 _connector_. Most wall warts and the like don't have an earth connection, and often have that flat connector, whose two pins are at about the same separation as Shuko, so will go into a Shuko socket. The genuine Shuko plug is round, not flat. (With earth as two strips along the side. There's also what I always think of as the Dutch variant, which actually has a hole in the plug for earth, and a pin in the socket. These days a lot of equipment is supplied with plugs that have both in/on the one plug.)

Well, anything but the latter, for general use.

Many contemporary 15A plugs in SA, are actually relatively small these days:-

Interesting; thanks for that. I wasn't aware that the shrouded pins were now on that standard too - though I'm a bit puzzled that that seems to include the earth pin!

Ha ! I've been using that plug for five years and never noticed that until now !

I need to dig out a micrometer, but visually comparing the two, the diameter of pins on 15A plugs, matches the thickness of the corresponding pins on a 13A plug. The pins are 5-6mm longer than ours.

The 'triangle' formed by the pins is larger IIRC.

The snag with saying 13 amp is too large for many things is we'd go back to where we were before - multiple standards.

Of course it might be possible to produce - at a cost - a socket which took both 13 amp and something smaller.

especially if they are moulded-on ones

It is, but only just !

Centre of Earth pin to centre of L-N pin axis, 25mm for 15A, 23mm for 13A

The L-N pitch for both plugs is the same figure too.

However, I do think the 15A 'feels' much larger (than it really is)

Of course, the thickness of the pins is only part of the story (a lot of cheaper ones aren't solid brass anyway); the contact area has some bearing too, which varies from socket design to design. But this only really matters for high-current cases.

True, so the "traditional" body is a _bit_ bigger. Look at Mark's picture (which conveniently shows a BS1363 plug side by side) though!

True, I suppose - though that has its advantages too.

Such sockets did exist here way back when; I think it was helped by at least two of the then-current sizes (was it 5A and 15A?) having the same size earth pin, so the sockets looked something like O

o o O O

A single DMX line is a pair and screen. The 5 pin system either carried an optional second DMX line or isn't used. Pragmatic to use cheaper 3 pin XLRs... B-)

The buggers do as well then have the cheek to complain when our nice light screened starquad cable starts to give them problems. B-) They then get their revenge by giving us back nasty heavy twin screened DMX cables.

Not pleasant but the cable from a BS1363 leaves at 90 deg to the pins so floows the line of the surafce that the socket is mounted on. Schuko has the cable coming out in line with the pins at the other end of the connector so sticks out quite away. There are a few plugs about that are angled but the overall depth is still higher than the inch or so for a BS1363.

Agreed, though the same is true of the old round-pin ones (and the Wylex one just described, which sounds an _excellent_ system).

(I eventually worked out what the typo-ed word was - follows. Took me a while though!)

Conversely, the Schuko socket is recessed (both in walls and extension cables), so the _overall_ projection was certainly not significantly greater, if at all. This also had the effect that the need for shrouded pins did not arise.

I have seen Schuko plugs with side-entry cables (even ones with a rocker switch on them!), but I agree they weren't the default. (I was brought up in Germany 196x-197x - my dad got a job with the British army there - but I haven't been back for some decades, so don't know what the _default_ is these days.) There are also, of course, straight-entry BS1363 plugs - mainly for industrial and/or outdoor use - and those are of course huge things, if amount of stick-out you're taking about.

I do wonder if you've any real experience of alternatives round the world. Ours may not be perfect, but IMHO is a better compromise than any other.

Put it this way - has anywhere which adopted 'our' system subsequently changed to something else?

If somewhere gets as far as adopting _any_ standard, they're unlikely to change for at least three or four decades. And yes, as I've already said in this thread, I grew up in a Schuko household, and found that a more logical system than ours. And yes, I've taken an interest in other world systems - I think I can put my hands here on a poster showing a fair number of them, produced by a connector manufacturer (who has no particular incentive to promote any one over any other).

In article , J. P. Gilliver (John) scribeth thus

Any pray tell what's exactly wrong the UK plug system?..

And in what way is the Schuko better?..