Home & Garden Home Appliances

What Are Electrical Plugs?

By Home & Garden Last updated Thursday, July/25/2024

Type B 3-Pin Plug

In North America the typical plugs used by electronics are the three-pin type. These fit into the Type B electrical outlets which are common in modern construction. This style of plug is used for 15 amps of 120 volt alternating current. The bottom round male blade is the ground and doesn't carry any electricity in normal circumstances. It is designed as the emergency backup system. In the event electricity gets somewhere it shouldn't, it provides a path to the ground. The narrower flat blade on the right side is the hot wire and it delivers the electricity from the source to the device. The wider flat blade on the left side is the neutral, providing the path from the device back to the source. The neutral is necessary for electricity to work.

The North American two-pin, also known as a Type A plug, is an older version of the modern three-pin plug. This plug has two flat parallel blades. The early designs allowed the blades to be inserted into the outlet either way, but the more modern design widens one of the blades to force the correct hot and neutral connection. These plugs do not provide the emergency ground connection that the three-pin plug does. They are designed to carry 120 volts at 15 amps.

For devices that need 240 volts of electricity in North America, a NEMA 14 plug is standard. This plug can supply between 30 and 60 amps of electricity and is commonly used for stoves, clothes dryers and other devices which require a lot of electricity. This plug contains two hot connections, a neutral and a ground plug. Each hot plug carries 120 volts of electricity which are out of "phase" with one another. The two 120-volt circuits combine to provide the 240-volt service.

There are currently 15 different standard plugs used around the world. These can carry 120 or 220 volts of power depending on the local standard. Electrical frequencies also vary from 50 to 60 hertz (Hz). The frequency is the number of cycles per second at which the alternating current is delivered. In North American 60 Hz is the standard but in Europe 50 Hz is common. Whether or not your 60 Hz devices will work in 50 Hz outlets depends on the manufacturing tolerances for that device, so check the instructions that came with them or contact the manufacturer.