I understand it is now a legal requirement for tools/mobile equipment sold in the UK to have a BS 3-square pin plug fitted but what about 120V equipment for use on building sites? What kind of plug will they have fitted – are they all those yellow international standard (IEC?) ones?
How long has this low voltage system been around? – I saw the portable transformer units on my last visit over and saw a cheap solution to a workshop full of US power tools, were I ever to have to return to the UK. During my time working the British building sites/house remodeling as a lowly youth in the mid to late 1970’s about the only electric thing we had was drill and that plugged into a standard socket.
Is the building site system a center-tapped grounded one with 60V on each pin (a la US 240V), or 120V phase to ground, or even isolated?
Are standard NEMA plugs ever used in this system?
Does anywhere else in the 230V phase-to-ground world use this system? – I never came across it in South Africa where an earth leakage unit feeding standard sockets was the only requirement for ‘outside’ work.
Sorry, so many questions.
