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Oh boy, it’s “TC does something electrical” time again!

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Today we’re answering the age-old question

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“why do US plugs have holes in them?”

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That’s a great question!

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And many people have asked that.

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Especially people who have noticed that plugs have holes in them.

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Let’s ask everyone’s begrudgingly favorite
search engine.

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Oh!

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That’s a perfectly logical explanation!

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Of course, why didn’t I think of that?

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The outlet side must have some sorta squeezy
thing to grab the blades of the plug,

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and putting a little hole in the plug for it to
index to sure would be helpful.

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I bet that makes the plug less likely to fall out of the receptacle!

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Except it doesn’t.

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And that’s not what it’s for.

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At least, not intentionally.

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While the commonly-cited explanation makes logical sense,

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it seems few people are taking the next step which is of course to test this claim.

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And no, you don’t need to do what I’m about to do

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and rip an outlet apart to see its insides -

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that’s dangerous and you should not do that.

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But what you absolutely can do,

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and probably have done several times in your life,

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is plug something in and pay attention.

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Now as I’ve said many times at this point

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the NEMA plug design that we’re stuck with here is objectively terrible

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and among the worst in the world in terms of safety—

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just a friendly reminder that this pin is live!

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And yet really easy to touch!—

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uh but we’ve been over that.

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What I want you to notice is what it feels
like when you insert the plug.

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Here we have a standard polarized lamp cord.

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Oh - right, side-note:

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There is one thing that our plug does to try and make
up for its general haphazardness.

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I haven’t brought it up because I assumed
it was fairly universal across the globe,

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but much to my surprise it isn’t apparently.

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Our plugs are polarized.

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Look at practically any outlet and you’ll
see that one of the slots is wider than the other.

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And on many two-pin plugs like this, one blade is fittingly
wider than the other

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meaning it can only be inserted into the receptacle one way.

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This is to enforce polarity between live and neutral.

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Of course this only works if the receptacle
was wired correctly

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but assuming it was the narrow blade is live and the wider blade is neutral.

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Grounded plugs usually don’t bother making
the neutral blade wider because the position

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and presence of the ground pin enforces polarity on its own,

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similar to how many other countries do it.

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You might think that since we’re dealing
with AC power here polarity doesn’t matter,

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and yeah everything will work if it’s wired backwards,

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but that introduces danger in certain situations.

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Take, for example, an antique toaster with
a single-pole switch.

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If polarity isn’t enforced in the plug,
and the switch happens to be

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on the neutral side when you plug it in,

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then all of the heating elements and bus bars that are literally right there and in easy reach

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would be live at 120 volts even when the toaster isn’t toasting.

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That’s shockingly unpleasant!

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A simpler but no less important use for a polarized plug

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is in a common lamp with an Edison socket.

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These are dangerous all the time because child fingers

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—and indeed full-size human fingers—

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can get right in there.

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But making sure that the outer sleeve is neutral makes it at least marginally safer

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(and ideally prevents you from getting zapped off a light bulb where
 a bit of the screw surface is exposed

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and that’s pretty common.)

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Still need the outlet (and lamp) to be wired
correctly, though, so don’t go testing that one for yourself.

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Anyway, not everything needs a polarized plug.

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Things that are double-insulated, for instance,
pose very little risk of leakage current happening

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and so either blade is free to be whatever it wants to be.

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As an example, tons of electronics stuff like
USB power supplies or…

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other power supplies don’t bother with polarization.

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But most general electrical devices, 
especially those with a power switch,

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will use a polarized plug to ensure the switched leg is the hot leg.

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It’s one of the few objectively good ideas in this plug design,

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and oddly enough we all seem used to it and 
aren't constantly playing Shcrodinger’s USB.

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Of course we could just put a ground pin on
everything but where’s the fun in that?

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Then these things wouldn’t just be dangerous,
they’d be useless!

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OK so back to the holes.

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I’ve got a lamp here with a holey plug and
you know what I’m gonna do?

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I’m gonna plug it in.

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Slowly.

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If these holes are used as a point for some
sort of mechanical pinchy dude to grab on,

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surely I should feel the plug sort of… give as it’s fully inserted, right?

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That would be when the holes would align with
whatever this pinchy thing is,

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at least you’d hope so.

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OK so, here we go.

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Hmm. There doesn’t seem to be any sort of change
in resistance here.

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It’s just a firm but smooth push the whole way.

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Same with removal.

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But I’ve got a bunch of different outlets I can test!

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I’ve got more of these than any other ‘cuz I’m fancy

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but here’s a tamper-resistant GFCI outlet.

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Hmm.

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Same as before.

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Alright and another one with a switch built-in.

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Still no obvious interaction with those holes.

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Uhh… alright here’s a more generic one in my garage.

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Nope, still smooth.

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Uhhh... the basement!

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There’s more in the basement.

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There’s this GFCI receptacle here by the
electric panel and…

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nope. Nothing.

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This one!

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Over here!

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Nope.

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OK but there’s these!

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There’s these!

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The grey tamper-resistant one’s on a switch,
by the way, I knew you’d want to know.

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Uh, nothing on the white one… ok...

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OK the grey one.

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Help me out the grey one.

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You’re my only hope.

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Ahh!

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No!

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Is there not a purpose for these holes?

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Has my life been a lie?

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Oh wait!

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There’s a 20A GFCI in the garage I forgot about!

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Here goes…

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at last! At last!

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The plug gave way after I first encountered
resistance,

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something’s engaged with the holes!

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But wait,

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that's not inserted fully.

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Well that’s silly!

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Indeed it is.

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So was that whole sequence.

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Anyway, to see what’s going on we need
to look at what’s inside some receptacles.

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Luckily, through the magic of buying several
and viciously tearing their faces off,

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we can see.

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I have four different kinds today.

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The cheap kind that comes in a big ol' box with like
a hundred of them just loosely thrown around.

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A slightly less-cheap one that purports to
be “heavy-duty.”

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A so-called “commercial grade” feller.

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And this one that’s old and I have a bunch
of them and I couldn’t really tell you why exactly.

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They’re off-white.

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Not my jam.

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I suppose mayonnaise is an off-white jam…

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So, these are the grabby things.

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They actually grab onto the plug’s blades
and make electrical contact with them.

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And they’re all different!

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Luckily we can remove these from the plastic
to get a closer look at them.

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Of these designs, there are two that might
kind of sort of make use of those holes

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but let’s start with the two that obviously don’t.

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That’s these two. The mystery one and the cheap one.

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In the cheap one, we have two perfectly flat
brass pieces pressing into each other.

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There isn’t any kind of protrusion or bump
or anything to even hope to engage with the hole,

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and indeed the hole will simply glide right on through.

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In fact the flat surfaces are longer than the hole’s diameter

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so there’s no possible way for the hole to have any sort of impact.

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This is purely a friction fit.

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With the old mystery one we have the same
deal, although the construction is a little different.

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Here the brass is formed into a U-shape and
the blade goes in the middle of the U.

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Now the blade is wider than that gap so there
is quite a lot of friction produced here,

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but it is notable that in the other design
the blades actually touch without a plug in place.

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It’s a very different design, here, with
the spring tension being delivered

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from this lower joint and not the U-bend.

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Perhaps it’s more durable, but I’m not
about to sit here for months and find out.

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So now the heavy-duty one.

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This is a little strange.

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We have a somewhat similar arrangement to
the cheap one, with two angled tabs meeting

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to form a pinch point, but the brass pieces aren’t straight.

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One is very slightly curved, and the other
also deviates slightly from straight to meet it.

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With a blade between them the resulting deformation
gives two not-quite-flat contact areas on

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either side of the blade.

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Now, this kink spot here seems to sometimes
land in the hole—

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without a plug in place you can see that the two sides actually only touch at the top,

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almost making a tent-shape.

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Sadly I did not buy two of these—a terrible oversight on my part

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— so I can’t see how the plug fits in here.

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And its face is too mangled to get an accurate idea.

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But I have to say that of these designs this
one seems to be the absolute worst.

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The width of a plug’s blades isn’t enough
to deform these into straight, parallel lines—

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they’re simply too far apart.

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So you don’t get a flat contact patch with
the blade on either side,

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instead you get two smallish points.

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Don’t like that.

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But because of that, depending on how you
insert the plug,

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those points might land where the hole is, and sort of grab onto it.

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But I sincerely don’t think that’s intentional.

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In fact if that happens you’d get an even worse electrical connection

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because there’d be less pressure on the blades where the hole is.

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And so now we are down to the commercial version.

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This one’s got weird-looking sideways blade
grabbers because this same design is used in 20A receptacles

183
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and likely the even-weirder looking NEMA 6-15 and 6-20R 240V receptacles.

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00:10:10,088 --> 00:10:15,276
Yes, friendly reminder, 240V circuits exist here
but they’re weird.

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I made a video about them.

186
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Anyway the actual contacts are able to accept
either the normal vertical blade

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or the less-normal sideways ones and that’s why they look like this.

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Taking a closer look we can see that, once
again, there’s nothing in there

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that looks as if it’s intentionally engaging with the
hole in the plug.

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00:10:35,711 --> 00:10:40,557
The inboard contact is completely flat with
nothing so much as a bump,

191
00:10:40,557 --> 00:10:46,909
and the side contacts… well maybe they might drop into the hole a bit, I suppose,

192
00:10:46,909 --> 00:10:50,600
but again. Doesn’t look to be intentional at all.

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00:10:50,600 --> 00:10:57,199
And if we go back to this here outlet, which
undoubtedly has the same internal connections at least on the left-hand side,

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we’ll remember that while the plug does seem to get caught as it’s inserted, that happens before it’s fully-inserted.

195
00:11:04,711 --> 00:11:06,470
Which is just silly.

196
00:11:06,470 --> 00:11:10,785
The fact of the matter is this is just a friction fit.

197
00:11:11,481 --> 00:11:12,550
That’s it.

198
00:11:12,550 --> 00:11:18,151
The presence of the hole in the plug, if anything,
makes the connection slightly worse.

199
00:11:18,151 --> 00:11:21,818
But here’s the thing - if a plug is fully inserted?

200
00:11:21,818 --> 00:11:26,220
Those holes end up way past the actual point of contact.

201
00:11:26,615 --> 00:11:30,534
And you don’t even need to look in here to see that, just grab a plug.

202
00:11:30,534 --> 00:11:36,215
After a few insertions and removals, there
will probably be witness marks left on the blades.

203
00:11:36,215 --> 00:11:39,180
And sure enough, they don’t stop at the hole.

204
00:11:39,180 --> 00:11:41,267
They go well beyond it.

205
00:11:41,267 --> 00:11:44,098
One of the other holes in this whole hole argument

206
00:11:44,098 --> 00:11:46,599
is that lots of plugs don’t even have them!

207
00:11:46,924 --> 00:11:48,234
This timer doesn’t.

208
00:11:48,675 --> 00:11:49,621
[awkward pause]

209
00:11:49,992 --> 00:11:52,780
And this is the only thing I could immediately find.

210
00:11:52,780 --> 00:11:58,754
But, I can think of at least two other unholey
things I’ve had - a night light and a lamp.

211
00:11:58,754 --> 00:12:02,601
Also I’m pretty sure I have a power supply
cord somewhere without holes.

212
00:12:02,601 --> 00:12:07,424
Also it should be noted this is from IKEA,
it’s not just some weird random timer

213
00:12:07,424 --> 00:12:09,580
from the dollar store or whatever.

214
00:12:09,580 --> 00:12:15,494
Despite not having holes in its plug blades,
it fits just fine into all my outlets and whatever.

215
00:12:15,494 --> 00:12:16,657
Nice and snug.

216
00:12:17,260 --> 00:12:20,830
So… what’s the deal with the holes then?

217
00:12:20,830 --> 00:12:28,330
Why do so many — in fact nearly all — plugs
have these holes in the exact same places

218
00:12:28,330 --> 00:12:30,930
if they’re not actually doing anything useful?

219
00:12:30,930 --> 00:12:36,720
Well, the toads over at NEMA actually do tell us what the deal is with the holes.

220
00:12:36,720 --> 00:12:38,824
The holes are, and I quote,

221
00:12:38,824 --> 00:12:43,330
“Optional, and it is intended for manufacturing purposes only.

222
00:12:43,330 --> 00:12:47,600
However, if used, it must be located as per dimensions shown above.”

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00:12:48,468 --> 00:12:49,618
Interesting.

224
00:12:49,618 --> 00:12:54,451
Ya know, manufacturing purposes makes a lot
of sense now that I think about it.

225
00:12:54,451 --> 00:12:57,780
Take this incredibly common plug design.

226
00:12:57,780 --> 00:13:02,466
The leads of the cord are simply soldered
or perhaps crimped to the blades

227
00:13:02,466 --> 00:13:05,811
and then a big ol’ glob of plastic is molded around it.

228
00:13:05,811 --> 00:13:08,528
These clear ones reveal that quite clearly.

229
00:13:08,528 --> 00:13:13,116
Putting holes in the blade would allow for
a very simple mold-alignment procedure

230
00:13:13,116 --> 00:13:16,050
using nothing but some sort of stick.

231
00:13:16,050 --> 00:13:17,050
In fact…

232
00:13:17,050 --> 00:13:21,120
here’s that exact thing happening in a factory which manufactures these.

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The worker simply has to thread an alignment rod through this holder,

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place the blades and wires in there while pushing the rod through as they go,

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give a tug to ensure it’s aligned, and boom.

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Plugs made to spec.

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But why is the location so important?

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Well, as far as I can tell, the answer appears to be pretty simple.

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NEMA just wants to be sure that the hole is
far forward enough

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that it won’t land where the contacts touch the blade when the plug is fully inserted.

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We saw from the witness marks that the hole
should go past the contacts,

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and none of these receptacles engage with the hole in any deliberate
manner,

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00:13:58,324 --> 00:14:01,650
and those which appear to do it do it… badly.

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Again.

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00:14:02,700 --> 00:14:04,710
This is not fully-inserted.

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[Voiceover] 
While editing this video I ran across some mention of old patents which do

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show using the hole as part of a locating mechanism.

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00:14:13,161 --> 00:14:17,810
I didn’t confirm these but another person
claimed to have seen some old receptacles

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in the wild which had a locking lever, presumably utilizing those holes.

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00:14:22,900 --> 00:14:27,990
However it seems pretty clear that these are
long-deprecated uses for them.

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Whether NEMA is honoring these legacy devices
in codifying the location of the holes is

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not known to me, but I guess it’s possible.

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However, I think in the end it’s not a good
idea to encourage contact designs

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which use the holes for indexing because of a problem
I’m about to bring up.

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00:14:45,180 --> 00:14:49,890
Now I suppose there could be receptacle designs
out there which do have some sort of bump

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on the contacts which indexes the hole but
that seems like it would introduce other problems.

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If that were the case, the pins would have
to bend beyond their resting point

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to allow for plug insertion and they’d wear out more
quickly, at least it seems that way to me.

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00:15:06,295 --> 00:15:10,694
Maybe there was an old design that NEMA wants
to ensure compatibility with.

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But that still seems unlikely to me.

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All signs seem to point to

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“it just needs to be at least this far forward,

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and also making it too large would affect structural
integrity and current-carrying ability if the plug weren’t fully-seated,

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so we codified the hole’s size and position.

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Whether you want to use it and for what is up to you.”

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Well, I think that’s about it!

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00:15:32,061 --> 00:15:35,387
This video has a lot of speculation in it. 
If you couldn’t tell.

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But I’d welcome any of the NEMA toads out
there to fill us in on any details

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00:15:39,375 --> 00:15:40,690
I might have missed.

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00:15:40,690 --> 00:15:46,210
Like, for instance, are there historical designs
out there that use these holes for something?

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And why is it so common for devices to have
them, even things like these?

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Is there a factory somewhere that just makes
zillions of these blades

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and they put the holes in not knowing what they’re gonna be used in?

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Will I ever stop asking questions?

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Yes.

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00:16:01,440 --> 00:16:07,710
Though I have to wonder if part of their prevalence
comes from people feeling that they just need to be there.

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I’ll admit that the rare plugs I find without holes all seem kind of…

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wrong.

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00:16:14,583 --> 00:16:21,308
And so maybe this is just a huge cultural
or manufacturing inertia thing we’ve slipped into somehow.

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People have seen the holes and so, when speccing
out whatever thing they want to manufacture,

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they just put them there.

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00:16:27,470 --> 00:16:32,210
Or maybe there is a factory that just pumps out these blades
day in and day out so it’s

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not even easy to get a solid blade.

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In the end, though, it doesn’t really matter.

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00:16:37,267 --> 00:16:39,140
This was a pretty silly video, huh.

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00:16:39,140 --> 00:16:43,214
Oh, but before I go, I want to push back on
a very common sentiment

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00:16:43,214 --> 00:16:46,505
that the rest of the world has about our plugs.

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00:16:46,505 --> 00:16:50,912
I’ve seen over and over again this notion
that they don’t stay put -

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that plugs will just fall out of the wall.

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00:16:53,810 --> 00:16:58,354
I can assure you that I absolutely think our
plugs are flawed in myriad ways

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but this isn’t really that common.

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00:17:00,770 --> 00:17:05,399
Sure, receptacles will wear out with time
and actually if you have one in your home

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00:17:05,399 --> 00:17:09,169
that barely holds onto a plug you really
ought to get that replaced

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00:17:09,169 --> 00:17:14,100
because that can lead to fires by way of poor connections and
high resistance.

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00:17:14,100 --> 00:17:18,150
But it typically takes decades for a receptacle to wear to that point.

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00:17:18,150 --> 00:17:22,174
Most outlets require a firm pulling force
to unplug things,

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00:17:22,174 --> 00:17:25,799
and big nasty wall warts don’t have trouble hanging on.

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00:17:25,799 --> 00:17:29,013
However, not all receptacles are created equal,

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00:17:29,013 --> 00:17:36,537
and I think a big part of this perception can be traced to the worlds of hotels, airplanes, airports — travel.

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And in particular this style of receptacle,
the kind that often gets integrated into bedside lamps.

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00:17:43,259 --> 00:17:47,134
I tried looking for something in the hardware
store that had this so I could take it apart

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00:17:47,134 --> 00:17:48,480
but I couldn’t find one.

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00:17:49,014 --> 00:17:51,277
That’s why this is at the end.

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00:17:51,277 --> 00:17:55,006
But I suspect that these are made to much
lower standards

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00:17:55,006 --> 00:17:58,159
than the equipment that actually gets placed in a wall.

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00:17:58,159 --> 00:18:04,812
I myself have encountered plenty of outlets
like these that are barely holding onto something I’ve plugged in,

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00:18:04,812 --> 00:18:08,032
and many are so damaged they don’t even work anymore.

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00:18:08,032 --> 00:18:12,974
But it has been quite rare that a real duplex
outlet has this issue,

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00:18:12,974 --> 00:18:15,291
at least not to that extreme.

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00:18:15,291 --> 00:18:21,268
Now, even if this weren’t a bad design, there’s
the simple fact that, in a travel-scenario,

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something’s getting plugged into those outlets
far more frequently than is typical.

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00:18:26,189 --> 00:18:28,787
There’s a finite lifespan on any connector,

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00:18:28,787 --> 00:18:34,054
and in a setting where people are going to be using them daily or perhaps more frequently than that

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00:18:34,054 --> 00:18:35,994
they’re gonna wear out quickly.

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00:18:35,994 --> 00:18:40,731
In a home setting many outlets get used…
maybe weekly?

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00:18:40,731 --> 00:18:45,067
Some have something get plugged into them and
then aren't touched for a decade or more.

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00:18:45,067 --> 00:18:49,880
Anyway, I’m just bringing this up because
this criticism is really quite situational.

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00:18:49,880 --> 00:18:54,142
Every time I hear it I’m like… “no, that’s not a thing I deal with”

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00:18:54,142 --> 00:19:00,284
but then I remember that, actually, yes in hotels that’s
quite common in my experience.

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00:19:00,284 --> 00:19:05,238
And so I think a lot of you are experiencing
badly-designed worn-out receptacles

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00:19:05,238 --> 00:19:07,355
and then assuming that’s the norm.

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00:19:07,355 --> 00:19:10,530
And I feel that I must, on behalf of my fellow NEMA compatriots,

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00:19:10,530 --> 00:19:13,087
inform you that this is incorrect.

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00:19:13,087 --> 00:19:16,356
But yeah it’s still a pretty bad design all ‘round.

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00:19:16,356 --> 00:19:19,519
The mere fact that this is possible is unforgivable.

326
00:19:19,519 --> 00:19:21,867
Just tremendously bad.

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00:19:21,867 --> 00:19:25,560
Oh well, at least it’s not 240 volts comin’ out of there.

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00:19:26,489 --> 00:19:28,979
♫ optionally smooth jazz ♫

329
00:19:30,488 --> 00:19:33,455
Let’s ask everybody’s favorite begrudgingly f... ugghhh.

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00:19:34,453 --> 00:19:37,356
Well. We were doin’ so well.

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00:19:37,356 --> 00:19:40,373
Especially people who have 
[weird noises]

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00:19:40,373 --> 00:19:44,411
...meaning it can only be inserted into the recept ebbible I don’t like how that went.

333
00:19:44,411 --> 00:19:48,643
….this only works if the receptacle is wi… 
yeah I’m gonna start over because I misread that

334
00:19:48,643 --> 00:19:50,871
and I don’t want to faff with that later.

335
00:19:50,871 --> 00:19:56,478
The cheap kind that comes in a big box with
a hundred or so just lohss… oops.

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00:19:56,478 --> 00:20:03,220
NEMA just wants to be sure that the hole is
far forward enough that it won’t land where the contacts touch.

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00:20:04,914 --> 00:20:06,213
The blade.

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00:20:07,537 --> 00:20:08,701
Sentence wasn’t over.

339
00:20:08,701 --> 00:20:10,786
…like when you insert the plug.

340
00:20:10,786 --> 00:20:14,431
Here we have a standard plaaaaaughhh.

341
00:20:15,824 --> 00:20:19,450
Here we have once again illustrated the perils of Google deciding what answers are.

342
00:20:19,450 --> 00:20:22,486
There's literally no basis in reality for the explanation that popped up.

343
00:20:22,486 --> 00:20:26,788
People really need to go a little bit beyond what makes intuitive sense because there are a lot of counter-intuitive realities in this world.

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00:20:26,788 --> 00:20:29,094
Oh well, at least there's Ask Jeeves.

345
00:20:29,094 --> 00:20:30,734
Wait, it's not Jeeves anymore?

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00:20:30,734 --> 00:20:31,530
I'm old.