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by dingo454 1663 days ago
I really like this design due to how compact it is. Italy has an almost identical historical design*, but the earth is not offset so LN can be swapped.

Both plugs and sockets are very compact, which is a far cry from the emerging standard which is the shuko/europlug which takes twice the space. Almost all new houses are equipped with shuko sockets.

But the sockets here do not have the additional prong to avoid swapping the neutral, so they're effectively just a waste of space.

* at least, we have two sizes for it, a smaller one rated for 8A, and the newer for 16A which we commonly have today.
1 comments
afiori 1663 days ago
In Italy in practice there are 4 common plugs, 2 type L (big and small), the schuko (type F) with many variations and the europlug.

the compatibility table is not trivial (in particular the europlug is compatible with everithing except the big type L sockets) and while new houses might be to nicer standards, there are a lot of very old houses in italy (i lived in a house from ~1850) and many public spaces use the cheapest sockets they can find so you either get a small type L (accepts also europlugs) a simple schuko (accepts also europlugs and unhearthed small type L) or a big type L (accepts only big type L).

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hvusslax 1663 days ago
Is the BTicino plug (https://www.plugsocketmuseum.nl/Italian2.html) used at all in Italy now? There was a serious attempt at adopting it in Iceland in the late 1970s to early 1980s. These sockets can still be found in homes that were built in that period and they are just called "Italian sockets".
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afiori 1663 days ago
Never seen such a plug before in my life, but I have spent very little time anywhere near Ticino

In Italy I have mostly seen (https://www.plugsocketmuseum.nl/Italian1.html) 1,2,4,5, schukos like 17a and when lucky schukos like 9 and 10; I have never seen most of the others.

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dingo454 1662 days ago
Never seen this one in Italy, and I've been in several fairly old buildings.
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dingo454 1663 days ago
Oh I know, I lived in a old house as well and circled through europe so I've seen/suffered all the plugs from UK/France/Germany/Italy...

In this regard, long live the "europlug" and the trend switching towards type F sockets.

But I was just lamenting the bulkiness of it in general.

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