hi today we are traveling to United
Kingdom UK is the birthplace of many
great science youtubers such as Tom
Scott dr. Sally LePage Steve mould big
Clive and boy in the band well boy in
the band is not really a science
youtuber but I've learned so many things
watching his videos so and those are
just a few I remember UK makes up around
five-and-a-half percent of my viewers
right after Germany and United States
and I've heard a lot about how safe
their plugs and outlets are I'm going to
go there and test them a little bit I
brought so many test equipment security
was very suspicious so I went shopping
to find a proper adapter to convert my
North American plug that's earth live
and neutral into the United Kingdom one
but no matter how much I searched I
didn't find one with a proper ground
it's always plastic so what if you're
traveling grounding doesn't matter and
you can die
I could hardly find this one that had a
hole for my ground but that doesn't
connect anywhere they provided a fancy
bag and not a ground I guess I'll have
to just go there shopping and find a
proper extension cord or something the
beautifully miserable weather of London
had only heard about it what to
experience it firsthand all the plugs
are fused and all the outlets that have
these on/off switches yes see all of
them are these breakers or just switches
even this ancient one
[Music]
yeah yeah it's a pretty nice city but
where the hell is the breaker box in my
hotel room I can't find it anywhere
inside or outside the room
maybe it's in some central electrical
room somewhere
I better not make any shorts one of the
interesting things about these bulky
British plugs is that unlike their North
American counterparts that have metal
completely exposed on the live prongs
they have half of it plastic so if it is
inserted halfway and makes contact to
live wires only plastic is exposed so
it's safer I mean it's something to be
tested I bought this adapter here in UK
with proper ground and fuse and
everything and if you look here I
shorted between the two prongs with a
thin piece of wire now when I plug it in
if this makes contact while these metals
are exposed this thing will pop open and
I'll know otherwise if I have to push it
further in it will push this piece of
wire back and nothing will happen and
I'll know it's safe okay it's definitely
shorted let's plug it in hopefully
nothing will happen and I'll know oh
jeez wow I better clean it up before
they see it well I basically ran away
the breaker for all the room outlets
just popped and I can't reset it so
hotel has to fix that for me
[Music]
it's funny these lights run on gas
global warming man use LED well the
hotel reset the breaker and one thing's
for sure this suite is just a redundant
Street and not a breaker and if you look
here the plot has to go quite deep
before making a contact I don't know why
my test failed or why I did it like that
while I could do it like this so maybe
my wire here was pushed into the socket
instead of sliding away so this is still
safer for not exposing live wires also
what I didn't calculate was that hey
there are tiny doors on this outlet so
you can't stick anything in there nice
the ground prong has to go in first to
unlock these doors safety anyway we have
240 volt AC 50 Hertz here in UK back in
hundred 20 volt AC Canada my thin wire
would pop first before any breaker would
because any similar home all around the
world draws around the same power like
hundred watt lamp is hundred Watts
anywhere so things are designed to draw
half the current on 240 volt AC compared
to 120 volts that puts much less stress
on the power lines here and the breakers
are set to trip at half the current
compared to 120 volt AC also the surge
current through a thin wire is double on
240 volt AC that's why I tripped the
breaker in any case the UK outlets have
these doors on their bigger holes so
nobody can stick anything in there
not much more safety features compared
to North American outlets I would say
[Music]
I'm curious what's inside a UK plug and
you know what that rhymes with curiosity
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lose this promotion here it's open and
one thing's for sure if you step on
these plugs facing up may God have mercy
on your soul it's interesting first all
these plugs have a fuse made in them a
13 amp in this case which if anything
downstream in your device shorts this
will pop open which makes for a much
less interesting video and you see here
the longest wire is the ground wire with
some slack and the shortest is the live
wire so if this thing gets pulled the
first thing to disconnect is the live
wire from your device which is much
safer
so these plugs have much more safety
features compared to their North
American counterparts
I won't test their GFCI or RCD breakers
in the hotel I'm already embarrassed to
have popped their breaker once all wait
until I get to my cousin's house the
London Museum
[Music]
Wow look at this these things
air-conditioned so I don't know what
they used to pull this now it might be
some healthier devices or something like
these loading lamps oops
how do you put it back and the LEDs are
wirelessly power to power dammit
welcome to Cambridge
[Applause]
[Music]
now in my cousin's house and what I
found in there
they actually have a breaker box down
here two sets for some reason and each
set has one RCD or what's called a
residual current detector which is the
equivalent to GFCI we have in North
America but the difference here is that
the RCD is for the entire house rather
than the North American GFCI that is
only in the bathroom the GFCI and RCD
are both to detect the livewire current
going into earth instead of neutral and
they pop open and the funny thing is
that their socket has different shape
here so that you can't plug the normal
household stuff here and it's only for
shavers and of course you don't need
GFCI here because the whole house is
protected by our CD well they may have
protected themselves against plugging
the wrong stuff into this socket but the
North American plugs fit these sockets
which means that tourists like me can
plug anything here and probably blow
something up although I've heard that
these outlets have their own internal
fuse rated at much less current inside
the walls so it will pop much easier see
any device draws current from life and
returns to neutral so if the current
goes from life to earth it's unexpected
and the RCD or GFCI will pop open and
the usual case is that a user in contact
with ground accidentally touches the
live wire and gets shocked so these
things usually trip at much less current
to protect the person well first things
first what does it take to keep the RCD
I connected my North American wires to
the adapter and let's measure ooh
interesting the live and neutral
connections are flipped here so now
white is live wire I brought a bunch of
different resistor values to put between
live on Earth and see which one will
trip the RCD North American GFCI trips
at around 5 milliamps so let's try a 47
kilo ohm and see if it trips the RCD
never use your bare hands what did I pop
let's just be careful okay 47 K between
live and Earth
let's didn't pop anything 10 K well
there you go we popped the our CDs
popped
how do you unpop this thing oh there you
go
you just need extra force 14.7 k nope
12 K there you go this means that the
RCD trips at around 20 milliamps which
is a much stronger shock compared to the
five mini amp of the GFCI but on the
bright side the whole house is protected
by the RCD now what will happen if we
plug things that are meant for 120 volt
AC into 240 volt things like resistive
loads such as incandescent lightbulbs or
inductive loads like motors will draw
double the current so quadruple the
power so those will blow up but
switching power supplies such as a
battery charger or a laptop wall adapter
are designed to work on hundred volt to
240 volt AC so nothing will happen to
these and they will draw half the
current from the power lines compared to
120 volts but on transformer based wall
adapters such as this one the output of
the transformer is not regulated so on
240 volt AC it outputs double the
voltage so if you use this to power your
devices they will blow up although
nothing should happen to the transformer
itself of course these wall adapters
have components that might not be rated
for double the voltage
[Music]
[Applause]
[Music]
yeah I'm back so UK plugs are fused live
wire disconnects first when pulled and
no exposed live voltage on prongs the
outlets can be turned off and have doors
on their holes and the whole house is
protected by our CD things we don't have
in North America I know some people that
could have been saved by just the RCD
the rest of the protection sound kind of
redundant which is pretty important in
safety critical systems but hey in North
America who cares about redundancy so
thanks to curiosity stream for
sponsoring this video so I could go to
UK and test their electronics and for
providing great knowledge because you
know when a system is missing redundancy
you rely on your knowledge to save you
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