To put it mildly, I am not a fan of side entry power plugs. What do manufacturers have against good old, traditional straight entry plugs?

I don't see the point in side entry plug tops with the exception of piggyback types, which are still legal if they are moulded.

In reality, all plug tops that aren't rewireable should be like the ones Breville puts on their appliances with the aim of discouraging those who like pulling plugs out of sockets by the cord.

Side entry PP's are good behind furniture etc.. As most GPO's are 'double', entry from bottom or at 45 deg allow use of both sockets.

Side entry plugs assume that you want the cord to point downwards against the wall. That is often not the case for me. Then there are the upside down Chinese side entry plugs that send the cable up the wall.

I have replaced side entry plugs with straight entry more times than I want to.

Both types are purpose specific.

I have seen straight plugs with badly crushed flex between walls and fridges, beds, etc. Fire waiting to happen, as they are usually out of sight.

Love em' or hate em', side entry plugs do have a purpose.

side entry plugs do have a purpose

Sure, but making it the de facto standard type is my gripe.

Now who are the ones driving everyone up the wall currently? Ties in.

Unfortunately any of the types will be wrong for someone. So really its a non issue. I find oversized power supplies that plug directly into the wall a annoyance as you can't use the outlet next to them.

So really its a non issue.

When I have to cut off and replace side entry plugs, it is an issue for me.

How about this bug bear. Extension lead sockets with overlapping shrouds. Only accept straight plugs. Oversized plug packs and side entry plugs will not be accepted.

Solution? Good pair of side cutters (not China crap) cut away the thick plastic and Bob's your uncle.

Side entry plugs assume that you want the cord to point downwards against the wall. That is often not the case for me. Then there are the upside down Chinese side entry plugs that send the cable up the wall.

China uses Australia's pin pattern on their sockets though they are up side down. This would account for that and I have seen the same plugs on a few things.

How about this bug bear. Extension lead sockets with overlapping shrouds. Only accept straight plugs. Oversized plug packs and side entry plugs will not be accepted.

Certainly ran into that a few times, a good pair of Lindstroms do the trick!

The reason for side entry plugs became quite apparent to me today. The company I work for is the largest in its field and tend to lump us all in the same boat.
Its a world wide company which quite often falls victim to some other countries safety standards ( not China ) . We had a OH&S issue presented to us today which explains the push towards side entry plugs. The example was of a U.S style straight plug that had been damaged by misuse and a colleague had been Zapped . The supervisor saw the smoking outlet ?( circuit breaker was activated ) and quickly pulled the plug out of the socket ( supervisor was reprimanded for this as there was no way for him to know the breaker was activated) . We now have had our OH&S SOPS updated to reflect this.

I would agree that there is a place for side entry plugs to keep them more flush and less susceptible to damage. I was involved in OH&S in the manufacturing industry & got loads of examples of qualifiers for a "Darwin award".

As we deal with Radios; I have issues with US two pin NEMA plug tops as they are reversible and a lot of their sets are "transformerless" as is a lot of stuff creeping in here.

There was an example where a RCD plug failed to activate and anyone using Variac's (Slide regulators) here and "Dim Bulb's" (I don't) that if the current is below 30mA (abt130V on a tester) you have no protection from an RCD. A reason that I use an isolation transformer with its own circuit breakers both sides of the transformer and a kill switch for testing.

The entire power distribution system here (farm) was upgraded by the end 2016 and brought into compliance with the regulations of then.

Marc

China..sockets.. are up side down

Do they put hospital sockets upside down in Oz?