I found a website with information on all the voltages used in the world. This poor fool has been collecting data for the past twenty years, from 60 different sources. He has painstakingly noted the number of references to each voltage and frequency. Obviously he has failed to realize that the world is moving towards standardisation.
http://www.dbicorporation.com/internat/internat.htm

I did start to write an e-mail to him, but then realised that there is no point. It would only shatter his illusions. The information he has collected is of no use. All his toil to no avail.

[This message has been edited by C-H (edited 01-28-2003).]

Mmm what a load of utterly useless and probabally inaccurate information!

Reminds me of a girl from the US midwest who arrived for a college placement here in Ireland having taken one of those sites way too seriously:

She had Schuko adaptors, BS1363 adaptors, BS546 round pin adaptors! a vast array of spike protection and power filters and came prepared for anything from 127 - 240V AC or DC!

Reality: you won't find anything other than a BS1363 socket feeding a steady 220-230V 50hz AC usually very stably. Have had computer plugged in without spike protection since the early 80s and have never had a problem! We don't even get much thunder lol.

BTW why do people keep drawing the UK plug upsidedown with the ground pin at the bottom! I have never seen a socket outlet installed that way. It would be slightly messy considering that the cord comes out of the bottom of the plug.

It seems however that power adapter manufacturers seem to assume these diagrams are correct. Most plug in power bricks I've seen on the market here are upside down! when you plug them in the writing's upside down and the cables come out the top!

Wow! That's some frequency stability you guys have up there north of the 49th! Why have you been holding out on us so long?

I see there's a reference to 240V 60Hz in the U.K. I'm not sure if 60Hz was ever used anywhere in the U.K., but if it was it was certainly a long time ago before standardization at 50Hz in the 1930s.

So many of these compiled lists contain errors. I admire this guy's determination in searching all the references he used; it's unfortunate that so many of those references are inaccurate or outdated.

As somebody interested not just in today but also in the historical development of systems, I'd love to see a list of systems used in the past. But I think that to compile a comprehensive list such as that would be even more difficult a task.

Ireland, the UK and Hong Kong should be something like this, right?
Ireland

UK

Hong Kong

[This message has been edited by C-H (edited 01-28-2003).]

Looks good C-H!

Just one extra point on the U.K. shaver outlets:

Many of the dual-voltage types are designed to accept American and Australian two-prong plugs as well as British and European round-pin types.

Well for Ireland
BS1363 is the offical standard and is in 99.9% of homes / offices

It replaced 2 standards though:
Type F and some Type M installations.

The UK/Ireland shaver socket and plug isn't the europlug either! It's BS 4573 similar but with shorter fatter pins than europlug. It cannot be inserted into a european outlet. Europlugs (and usually US plugs) will fit into UK/Irish shaver sockets howver.



Phones:

RJ 11 (Analogue) RJ 45 (ISDN)

Actually you might add the mobile telephone specs since that's what most visitors will encounter rather than the PSTN.

Ireland:
1)Vodafone Ireland
2)O2 Ireland
3)Meteor
All 3 use:
GSM 900 mhz and 1800mhz and GPRS for data.
No analogue service anymore
Currently one of the highest mobile phone penetration rates in the world.

Paul: Info added.

djk: Phone plug and mobile phone information added.

C-H,

Ireland:
Same as UK, sockets often have a switch and the shaver outlet is almost always a special 230/110V switchable outlet with an isolating transformer built in, quite often part of a light fitting over the sink in the bathroom. Accepts US plugs, European Europlug and British shaver plug.

It's also worth noting that in UK, Ireland and possibily Hong Kong it is essential that a fused adaptor be used at all times as the system is designed around the assumption that each plug is individually fused. If you just force a 2-pin euro plug into an outlet it may only be protected by a 32Amp MCB or Fuse!

The same mobile technical specs apply to the UK

GSM 900 & GSM 1800 with GPRS data.

ISDN plug is also RJ45 in the UK

I'll get the information on the world wide mobile systems in as soon as I have time to enter the data into the database. (There are lists, but not in the format I would like)

I've tried a different approach to the electric part than the other guy: Asking the regulating bodies or standards organizations in the different countries. I'm afraid half of my e-mails go unanswered, and there is always the risk of the local utilities simply ignoring the directives they are given. But at least it gives me more up to date information, like the one I just got from Latvia:

Latvia has not adopted the European 230V mains voltage, but technically we are ready to do it and will do it in near future!

Most of those standards agencies charge for any information. You would more than likely need to purchase a copy of the latest specs for electrical safety.

For those intrested here's the Irish Mark of Electrical Conformity. You may see this on some UK plugs (conforming to IS 401 or 401/A) sockets and switches and some appliences. It used to be on all apple macintosh computers sold here.

That is one mark I have never seen before. Aren't the Macintosh computers assembled in Ireland?

As I have remarked earlier, I strongly dislike these private and national "approvals" that doesn't mean anything. In a another tread I showed that the Danish Demko approves plugs which are unsafe to use in Denmark. Half of the blacklisted appliances and devices in Sweden carry the Semko-mark. The Electric Safety Authority now recommends people to look for the CE mark, not the Semko mark.

All European marks except the CE should be outlawed and instead testing for the CE marking should be introduced. This should be combined with severe fines (or jail) for those who forge the mark.

[This message has been edited by C-H (edited 02-06-2003).]

Hmmm. Many of the illegal ungrounded class 0 plugs carry the OVE label. So now assume everything with that mark is safe and legal.

C-H:

I thought VDE (or is it DVE?), OVE, Triangle-B (Poland), D, S, Kema-Keur and all of these were going to go away after a period of time after CE was established?

P.S.: I've seen the GOST logo on boxes of Russian-made breakfast cereal here in the USA!

The only problem is that the CE system as it stands at the moment is an absolute fiasco.

Each national authority is left to apply and enforce the CE approval mark, but each does it in a completely different way. The last I heard, Germany refuses to accept the CE mark anyway and still insistis on VDE approval.

The CE marking is special in that it works "inversly" to other marks: Instead of having an agency approve a product, the manufacturer ensures that the product is safe. By applying a CE mark to a product, the manufacturer shows that the product is intended for the European market and that it meets the European requirements.

Should this product kill someone, the manufacturer or representative will be taken to court: If it when tested does not meet the European requirements, then the manufacturer is toast. There is no way he can claim "Not intended for Germany" or similar.

Also, unlike other marks, the CE mark is not electrical only. A toaster can be electrically safe but still be dangerous, e.g. popping up sharp edges. This is not allowed under the CE mark. Apart from the obvious purpose of this (safety of consumer) there is one less well known:

Article 36 of the Rome treaty allows each country to ban products dangerous to health, environment or national safety. (I don't remember the wording) This means that e.g. the UK would be able to stop TV-sets made in France on the ground that they explode or require that they be tested to prove that they don't explode. This would be a legal barrier to trade and would push up the price of TV sets in the UK. To avoid this, the European Norms have been made all encompassing, saying that TV:s must not explode, catch fire, contain toxic products and so on. This makes it impossible for the member states to erect barriers to trade, unless there are very good reasons.

This is all fine if many manufacturers didn't misuse the CE mark. It is tempting to just slap a CE mark to the toaster you manufacture, without actually testing it. Therefore, I would like to see mandatory testing. As long as it is European (or world wide) not national.

The only place local electrical regualtions come in is on things like the UK/Irish/Italian/Danish/Swiss plug requirements.

They're only minor localisations though.

Rangnar: Yes, the ÖVE often appears, together with Kema-Keur, on the round plugs.

Sven: As you will have infered from my above posting, all the S, B, D etc. marks have no legal standing. But these companies would be put out of work if nobody used the marks. Therefore, there is intense campaining from these companies towards both manufacturers and consumers, claiming that the CE mark is a failure. I've noticed that the GOST logo appears more and more often on Swedish made food too, e.g. candy bars.

djk:

Yes, this would be one case where there are good reasons to block imports. Requiring the right plug isn't very much of a barrier to trade.

Hmm. In our geography&economy class half a year ago we were told that varying national plugs are deliberately used as a "non-tariffal trade barreer", along with the various national approval marks. The example given was that a washing machine made in the czech republic couldn't be imported to Austria that easy if the countries use different plugs. (czech republic uses french plugs). This should limit imports.

Plugs are hardly a barrier to entry. As long as the machine conforms to CE safety testing it passes.

Various plugs are required by various countries but the wiring is identical so all you do is fit the apropriate one for each country there is no requirment to re-test. The local electrical safety agencies just approve their own local plugs etc. All a manufacturer does is buy a mains lead with the correct plug moulded on. It's no big deal.

Language is also a legitimate barrier.

I would expect that most Austrians would rather not have their washing machine's front panel printed up in Czech..

C-H.. I don't know about elsewhere in Europe but I know for a fact that the CE mark is taken very seriously here in Ireland by the NSAI (National Standards Athority of Ireland).. They would hold any irish manufacturer liable for misusing it and in the case of imports the distributor is fully liable. The penalty is quite severe for misuse of CE, ISO or Irish Standards marks.. We're talking massive fines and possibily jail time.

In the case of distributors importing from outside the EU, they would sign a contract with the manufacturer that would include a declaration of conformity. If that were to be false they manufacturer would be sued and potentially banned from trading here.
The manufacturer would also be completely open to law suit by any injured party and courts here pay out massive sums (we're talking hundreds of thousands if not millions of euro in serious cases).

It's not the kind of thing you'd think about not complying with!

The only manufacturers who have faked CE have tended to be toy makers in the far east.

djk:

If it is like you describe it, I can only congratulate you. Here, lawsuits hardly exist. Some companies simply ignore sales ban and recalls. The Swedish courts are a joke. They can't even get killers convicted. (Recently some guy got three years for murdering his son...)

c-h,

One thing Ireland is as good as California at : sueing!

Distributors generally couldn't afford to risk selling dangerous merchandise as it would leave them wide open to a sue-happy public and and no win, no fee lawyers with a 1-800 numbers and TV ads!

The whole approval-mark and import angle raises one or two interesting queries.

In my workshop I have quite a bit of 120V equipment (soldering irons, Dremel tool, tape head demagnetizer, oscilloscope, etc.) which I have had sent from the States at various times.

Should I now expect some bureaucrat to come along and tell me that I've broken some law by importing it without the appropriate CE or BS approval mark?

No it's just not approved. If you get fried that's your own problem!

It would only be a problem if it was printed up with CE or BS marks and hadn't actually been tested / didn't comply.

You are free to import anything you want. It would, however, prob. breech sales & safety legislation if you were to attempt to sell it on as you may be liable as a seller/distributer for any damage it did as you would have a duty of care to the purchaser & legislation may specifically prohibit the sale of non-approved electrical goods.

I was just thinking that there was quite likely some petty EU or Whitehall rule making it illegal by now!

It does pose an interesting question about "duty of care" and related liability issues though. As far as I'm concerned, if it's got a genuine UL label on it, then it's good enough for me. In fact, I'd trust that UL label far more than I would a CE mark.

It might be interesting to see the reaction of one of our more petty-minded health & safety inspectors if such equipment were used in a commercial environment.