Why do shaver sockets accommodate round pin plugs in the 115V outlet when countries with 100V to 120V mains supplies use type A plugs with flat pins? Is there a country somewhere with a 100V to 120V mains supply that just so happens to use shavers with round pin plugs?
here is a 110V only shaver, being sold, at least according to the photo, with a 2 pin round pin plug. it is of course in Brazil. It just happens my wife has family there, so I have more than a passing connexion with the place. I agree that all but the cheaper models are described as 'bivolt' which means they either have a 110/220V switch or automaticaly adjust. The simple ones however are just a series wound mains voltage motor. I'm inclined to agree that anyone who travels probably can afford the slightly more expensive bivolt kind, and putting round things in a UK shaver socket on the 110V side will be rare.
mapj1: here is a 110V only shaver, being sold, at least according to the photo, with a 2 pin round pin plug. it is of course in Brazil. It just happens my wife has family there, so I have more than a passing connexion with the place. I agree that all but the cheaper models are described as 'bivolt' which means they either have a 110/220V switch or automaticaly adjust. The simple ones however are just a series wound mains voltage motor. I'm inclined to agree that anyone who travels probably can afford the slightly more expensive bivolt kind, and putting round things in a UK shaver socket on the 110V side will be rare.
Shaver sockets have had a 115V outlet that accommodates a plug with round pins as well as a plug with flat pins since the 1970s. Were 127V shavers sold in Brazil generally supplied with a round pin type C plug rather than a flat pin type A plug back in the 1970s, or only since type N sockets were adopted as standard?
If yes, then it does seem remarkable how (almost) all British shaver sockets are designed to accommodate shaver plugs from just one country in the world, and one that Britain doesn't have a particularly strong connection with. Not all shaver sockets sold today can accommodate the Australia / New Zealand two-pin plug with angled flat pins in the 230V outlet.
After some debate I have left a domestic sewage pump alarm plugged into a shaver socket, because it is American with a two flat prong plug.
The manufacturer assured me that I could just connect it to a UK 230 volt supply and all would be okay, when I tried it it was not at all happy, so it ended up on the shaver socket, bear in mind though some have a higher current rating than others.
The alarm has now outlasted the original pump and done its job on a number of occasions.
Whatever the official standard socket is in Brazil, in practice when you get way from the tourist hotels built in the last decade or so, you will find round 2 pin sockets that are more or less the European spacing, but with thinner pins. You will also find a metricated rounded up USA flat blade kind as well, both types on both voltages. From what I understand from relatives who have been to Argentina and Paraguay those parts of south America are much the same, though perhaps more 110v and flat blade plugs as you get nearer North America.
here is a picture of the 'universal' house socket as seen in domestic kitchens and bathrooms.
The idea is that the flat receptacles may be connected to 110, and the round holes to 220. This sounds like an excellent idea, but in reality as only one voltage or the other is ever supplied, we may find that both are 220, or both are 110, or that one half or the other left is left disconnected.
The only good news is that the 4mm round holes do not take the earth of the 3 pin US socket, as if they did, there would be a 50% chance of a live chassis. As it is, that troublesome pin gets snipped off, which may be safer in some cases. Dont ask about the wires that are, I think, a power take off to a switch for an extractor fan.
In many ways the new socket is a much better idea, but it will be 50 years before everyone has one, and the voltage confusion and plugs that look the same is just silly.
More generally the idea of a dedicated shaver socket with transformer does seem to be a uniquely British and former Empire concept, the rest of the planet just puts ordinary sockets in the bathroom and is careful. If you do not have the transformer, then the dual voltage offering is not possible, and again, outside hotels and similar places with lots of travellers, quite rare.
And of course with some perverse logic we Brits had to make our shavers fit no one else's sockets, ever.
Well possibly Chris, the 220V friends of the family we stayed at are in Florianópolis, and their holiday home is on the mainland, and ag with one neighbouring property it is on the end of it's very own branch supply in MRT (Monofásicos com Retorno pela Terra == single wire earth return) - the transformer and associated one street lamp up the precast concrete pole outside looks very strange to my UK eyes with just one HV bush on the transformer and the one 19kV line coming in at the top. That building was regarded as 'new' and I think would date from about 2010. Not a 3 pin anything in sight, but as the incoming mains had no earth, no electrodes and no RCD, that would have been fairly pointless anyway.
The 110V stuff however was from the area near Sao Paulo, though I also know that Rio is also 110V and looks very similar, having also stayed there.
I came back last time with more pics of wiring than of the folk we visited, which in retrospect I think was not a wise move in terms of domestic politics. ?
