ECN Forum Forums General Topics of the Trade Non-US Electrical Systems & Trades Korean plugs

The typical replacement re-wireable plug used over there is what we call the "contour plug".

It fits into grounded Schuko outlets. Korea has both standard two-pin ungrounded sockets and grounded Schuko types.

The Schuko sockets are mostly seen in places like the international airport at Incheon, office buildings and shops. I don't know if the ground terminal is connected to anything.

Most houses in the town I stayed in use un-grounded sockets, and if there is a grounded socket installed, you can usually safely bet that the ground pole goes nowhere.

The typical 220 volt residential system is across two "hot" or "live" legs.

The rewireable contour plug looks like this:




Schuko-type (both straight and right-angle) replacement plugs are also available.

I brought a bag load of these back home with me (along with another bag load of wall sockets and female cord connectors).

My workbench is going to look quite interesting!




[This message has been edited by SvenNYC (edited 10-07-2005).]

Not quite a contour plug... as it's not a fully circular sheild & the pins need to be sheathed which kinda makes me wonder why they bother with the sheild in the first place if it's not going to be used in a recessed outlet.

I had no idea that contour plugs were required to have sleeved pins now?

I have an old film camera lamp of German origin. It has a fused (!!) moulded-on contour plug, but the pins are solid steel, no sleeves.

And as far as recessed outlets go, Korean non-grounded outlets are recessed about 0.5 centimeters.

Most replacement plugs, the shield at the face is round, just like the European moulded contour plugs version.

However one or two manufacturers make theirs a bit "rectangular" like the second picture. I don't know why.


[This message has been edited by SvenNYC (edited 10-07-2005).]

Some of the molded contour plugs have the same rectangular front, but no sleeved pins. They seem to be acceptable like that. I've never seen a contour plug with sleeved pins, and there's absolutely no need for it, since the Schuko sockets are recessed anyway.

Edit: all harmonized countries seem to have a more or less silly regulation there must not be any rewireable contour and Euro plugs. Don't aks me why. Maybe they're afraid of people putting them on grounded appliances.

[This message has been edited by Texas_Ranger (edited 10-08-2005).]

That would make perfect sense to me.

Rewireable plugs should all be grounded. You can still put a schuko plug on your Class 2 appliance without any problems at all.

I have! On electric candles and on my German vaccum cleaner. It looks like that Korean plug, sans screw. With VDE approval, of course. Some countries have flat-front or nearly flat-front sockets (Denmark, ungrounded sockets in Norway etc.)

I thought that those flat-fronted non-grounded socket outlets were pretty much gone?

Cenelec really ought to simply impose a single CEE 7/7 compatable grounded outlet standard. It seems really dumb having all these incompatabilities for no good reason other than "that's the way we always did it"

It should be made compulsary in all countries that intend to use the 2 pin euro plug. The UK/Ireland & Cyprus/Malta where BS1363 is used are the only exceptions to this as they don't use a plug system based on whatever the common ancestor of schuko, the swiss system, the french system etc was.

All this stuff is nonsence!

I would advocate coming up with a physically compact plug that is rated 16A and could be fitted inside a lockable plug-adaptor, similar to those used in the UK to provide permanent conversion for 2pin europlugs.

Appliances could all ship with this new connector and a local schuko/whatever plug could be fitted over it and screwed shut.

Should the customer upgrade their house to the new system, you simply shed the converter plugs.

Given 20 years, the old systems would largely have vanished.

That used to be far from unusual in the past here. People would often wire a 2-pin 5A plug to small appliances and just leave the earth wire hanging loose outside the plug.

I've seen the BS 2-pin cable couplers used that way (The type you'd find on garden equipment) used to couple earthed cables!