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Comment by dylan604 | Hacker News Reader

I must say that the Type K 107-2-D1 from Denmark looks like quite the happy little plug. The Type I from Australia looks a bit surprised while the Type F from Germany looks quit robotic. For some reason, the Type A/B from N.America seems to be standing on its head.

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> from Denmark looks like quite the happy little plug

Your comment reminded me that as a kid (3-4 years old and even a little older) I used to, in a sort, anthropomorphise a power plug which I used to find very nice-looking and of course that I would play with it. It was driving my dad crazy, for good reasons (I actually did manage to get electrocuted at 3 years old while playing with another plug), but somehow I survived. All this to say, not so tongue in cheek (or only partly), that we should maybe strive to make angry and ugly plugs as much as possible.

For some reason, the Type A/B from N.America seems to be standing on its head.

The convention, now, seems to be to put the ground pin on top. I am not entirely sure when that became the convention, however, as it seemed to be the other way around when I was a child (with the ground pin on the bottom). I think I was a teenager when I started seeing the sockets installed "upside down."

The plugs don't come out of the socket as easily on their own when upside down. There are other reasons, but having had way too many plugs come out on their own, this is the biggest one I notice.

I've heard it's a safety thing, in some contexts, as the grounding pin is in the way if something gets dropped onto the plug.

Where are you? In Canada, I've never seen outlets installed ground-up.

In Canada, I've frequently seen outlets installed ground up: usually in newer buildings and more often in commercial buildings than residences. I have been told that ground up is the "correct" way, but I am not trained as an electrician.

EDIT: Upon googling, I can find lots of conflicting opinions, but it appears that the electrical code has nothing to say about it. They can be installed in any orientation: ground up, down, or sideways.

I've seen some houses where some outlets were controlled via switch. Those plugs were installed upside down to indicate switched control while all other plugs in the house were installed in the ground down orientation.

Is it realy a convention? I see it so rarely that to me it's more like a situation where someone did it "wrong", and then someone new learned from it snowballing into a thing.

Also, wall warts are also required to have all of their weight above the plug in the ground on top orientation. That's never worked well for me.

From a sample of five random wall warts in my drawer, none of them are polarised, so they can be plugged in either orientation. YMMV.

EDIT:

Is it realy a convention?

I was told so, but after googling, I am beginning to doubt it. It may have been a short lived thing.

What's a polarized plug got to do with it? All of the weight of the wall wart is above the plug vs hanging. I've had more issues in this orientation of the plug pulling out of the socket than when it is hanging from the plug. Even when the ground pin is on the bottom, if I put 2 wall warts on the same plug, one of them must be inverted to have both fit. The one upside down always has issues.

Everything? If the plug isn't polarised, the wall wart can hang down from the socket regardless of the position of the ground pin. It will literally plug in either way. I'm not sure what your complaint is.

The Danish hospital plug looks like somebody who is sick: https://www.plugsocketmuseum.nl/Danish2.html

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