Wang charged in inappropriate electricity socket use Electricity thieves beware: if the battery charge in your phone or laptop is getting a little too low for comfort, don’t just stick your tech gear into the first available plug socket or you could find yourself in the back of a police van. The warning comes from Taipei, where a man by the name of Wang was prosecuted this week …
If you put a 0.5A fuse in it also defeats the object of having the sockets there for the cleaners to use.
The simple solution is to get some very unusual sockets and matching plugs for the cleaners machines. Hey presto, you solve the problem of all but the most determined people using the cleaners sockets and not reading the signs.
It also solves the problem of cleaners unplugging things that are clearly marked as "DO NOT UNPLUG" since their equipment doesn't work with it.
Yes, I suppose you could do lockable covers however human nature is to leave them unlocked because locking/unlocking them is too much of a pain.
@Peter2, "It also solves the problem of cleaners unplugging things..."
I doubt it. Human nature dictates that they unplug it, look blankly at the incompatible socket and then go away to complain their plug is wrong (or that their cleaner is broken, or they've injured themselves with the unusual plug), leaving the critical equipment unplugged.
I'm assuming the designers of the charger have a built in fuse set to the proper amperage to not draw unsafe current, inside the charger itself, that would prevent it from inadvertently blowing a fuse on the wall socket. If so, the arrest was totally bogus and just another tyrannical example of poor government by ignorant people.
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Bingo sir and you can even unbalance the system by drawing too much from a single phase.
This in turn triggers the protection relays upstream, where unfortunately the cooling circulation pumps were also connected to.
Main machine (in my case printing press) senses overheat and shuts down, with alarms blaring and leaving me to figure out how to explain it all! Cascading failures, that 's how you bring a factory down from a single socket.
After this I withdrew my job application for the nuclear plant (jk - in this last part)
But after joining IT I witnessed a colleague bringing down the entire company network just by plugging one network socket into the other (gotta love auto-mdix) so I felt right at home.
No comparison:
1. A three phase outlet is NOT a GPO. OK?
2. Very small it must have been. It can't have even been a medium sided factory if you took half of it out from a single outlet.
3. Most machine tools etc. are fused at the normal 15/30A per phase or whatever which usually represents only one or at most a few machines. Normally machine tools, lathes, mills, etc. are individually fused (parallel loading of machines on multiple outlets from one fuse/breaker is normally avoided to stop catastrophic arcing in case of a short circuit).
4. If it were a high current outlet of hundreds of amps (meant for large industrial machinery) then the local arc flash may have killed you or its UV stuffed your retinas.
5. If it were a high-current, high-power outlet, then what were you doing fucking about anyway? Such high power outlets are an absolute no-no unless special precautions/safety measures are undertaken first.
6. If 1-5 don't apply then there's a serious writing fault within the factory and the site should be declared unsafe until it's fixed.
Again, no modern industrial system such as Taipei's Metro could be brought down by the fusing of a normal GPO. If for some remarkably strange reason it were ever to happen then the chief electrical engineer and all is junior engineers ought to be strung up by the balls on meat hooks. In such circumstances, a description of them involving 'incompetent' would be pathetically weak and mild.
The traction-power will be separated from the socket power. (Traction is normally 600V at several kiloamps).
However, if the fuse-board's ELCB is tripped, then it could take out several mains circuits including -
1. All other platform sockets, including vending machines.
2. Any platform ministores.
3. Ticket issuing machines.
4. Platform access gates - hopefully these fail to open, rather than to closed.
5. Platform-train screen gates used on over-crowed lines - if these fail open then people could fall onto the tracks, if they fail closed, then none can get on/off the next train.
Yes, there should be better separation, but if the sockets are only for cleaning machines, then it might not be that well designed.
You mean those industrial-size floor polishers that are all motor? Those things must use kilowatts of power. Hard to understand how a mobile charger could bring down a whole station when a cleaning machine doesn't affect it in the least.
(aren't the ticket machines on a different breaker than the cleaning outlets? One would certainly hope so)
More like the station management being d*cks about people using their outlets. And perhaps a small safety concern about people tripping over folks huddled by the outlets during rush hour, I guess.
//Megaphone for station manager
"You mean those industrial-size floor polishers that are all motor? Those things must use kilowatts of power. Hard to understand how a mobile charger could bring down a whole station when a cleaning machine doesn't affect it in the least."
Actually, 1 kilowatt or so for your typical floor polisher (though most of them don't have much in the way of starter caps and thus have a nice fat current surge at start up). A phone mobe charger is equally likely to blow a breaker if it is short circuited as a floor polisher (as in either case, current will cease to be limited by the device and only be limited by the wiring + whatever is making the short, tripping the breaker /almost/ immediately). However, other posters are correct - in neither case should it significantly impact anything upstream from local distribution.
-d
Hmm, your point is a good one, and I'm struggling to counter it. However, I'd argue that most things "public" are free, unless there is a method of payment either next to, or part of it. For example, you get on a bus, and there's a driver or machine who will take your money, or a machine you can wave a card at.
If something is "public" (ie. accessible to the public) and there's no method of paying, the only way to access that is without paying, which makes it free.
Yes, I'm being fasicious.
"WTF is a plug socket?"
I think it's one of those things they have over in 'merica (also Japan; Taipei I don't know about).
They function a bit like a mains socket, but with just 2 small parallel slots for little slotty pins. If you want an earth you often have to unscrew one of the fixing screws and attach a separate wire to it. Also they seem to have a habit of overheating badly and even catching fire (compared to the 3-pin types used in Europe).
Actually, most of our outlets here do have the parallel slots and a mostly-round slot beneath for a ground prong to plug into.
There may not be an actual ground wire connected to that slot, but still; it's nice not to have to go fishing for an adapter everytime I need to plug a 3-pronged plug into a 2-pronged outlet.
The situation in Canada is getting a little better.
All new sockets must be 3-pin but for some inexplicable reason, a lot of power tools are still two pin, even ones that have metal bodies. I bought a power drill the other day from Home Depot. A good sturdy piece of equipment, but it had a metal gearbox with exposed metal casing. I just couldn't find one that was properly grounded with a 3-pin plug. It's (only!) 120V but you could still get a right good belt off that.
But then a lot of things in the electrical trade here make me despair. There're no screw terminals behind the sockets, wires are twisted together with little screw caps, I kid you not. First time I saw one I thought, "OK, this was done by a fly-by-night merchant", but the instructions on how to do this "properly" are in the building regs here. (Shakes head in disbelief)
So there's like metro stations full of sockets, all labeled "do not use on pain of massive fines"? I'd make fun of the "in chinese" bit except it was in china (alright, taiwan), but I digress.
Sounds like inciting and provoking to me. Why not simply remove the things? Or put them behind a lock with a standard key issued to cleaners or something? Why even waste police effort on "theft" worth less than pennies? Are they all this principled then?
Use a non-standard socket type, and just wire authorised kit to the appropriate plug. For example, a BS1363 plug, not that hard to find in that region as HK uses them. Or, the good old BS546 15-amp round-pin, as still used in South Africa.
Did the phone in question have a removable battery? If so, he should probably carry a spare in future. :)
Seriously though, I think this is ridiculous. If it's that much of a problem, then the already mentioned idea of putting locks on the socket and giving the cleaners and any other staff that need them a key would be more sensible.
No, it's really not.
Cost of locking every plug, plus labour costs = millions.
Cost of dishing out a massive fine every couple of years in order to put people off doing it = zero.
We don't prevent dog fouling by fitting every dog with some kind of rectal valve that prevents it doing it anywhere outside of the owner's garden, or prevent petty crime by making it physically impossible. Instead, our systems of law operate by making it so that we don't want to break them, because of the personal cost of doing so.
Preventing people from physically breaking laws also impinges on personal freedoms. Far better that we have a choice, and then have consequences to face.
I would generally agree with everything you just said there, except for one tiny thing:
"Taipei Rapid Transit claimed in the paper that the reason for its rigorous policy on such matters is that it is worried a short circuit may bring down the electricity-powered rail network"
If the consequences of someone ignoring the signs are that they can bring down the rail network, then spending the money on preventing people from using the sockets is probably worth it.
A dog fouling outside the owner's garden doesn't have consequences as severe as bringing down a rail network (unless you let your dog play on the tracks and it happens to be capable of producing impressive amounts).
"We don't prevent ... petty crime by making it physically impossible. Instead, our systems of law operate by making it so that we don't want to break them, because of the personal cost of doing so."
This doesn't hold true for everything. Many crimes are prevented (or attempts to prevent them are made) by imposing physical measures such as locks, be it kensington locks, bike locks, locked doors, or the differently shaped mains sockets employed in other public places that other posters have mentioned in this discussion.
"Taipei Rapid Transit claimed in the paper that the reason for its rigorous policy on such matters is that it is worried a short circuit may bring down the electricity-powered rail network."
Utter fucking crap!
If the system were designed that badly then it wouldn't be working at all.
Officious bastards!
When I was a teenager, back in the Analogue Age, you could make free calls from phone boxes by jiggling the receiver rest to simulate pulse dialing. We called it "phone tapping", though even in those days that meant something different. A little later there was a technique for making long-distance calls at local cost by dialing local hops all the way to the destination. The attenuation was appalling, but long-distance calls were expensive. Finally, people learned how to manipulate the phone system with audio oscillators, a practice known as "phone phreaking".
I was led to believe that people who were prosecuted for these practices were charged with stealing electricity to the value of a fraction of a (pre-decimal) penny. I don't know what the penalties were - transportation to Botany Bay, probably.
They don't want people plugging devices into these sockets. Fair enough; it's their infrastructure, they get to decide what goes. But "will bring down the train system" is utter and complete bollocks with a side order of nonsense and a large portion of hogwash on top, unless they haven't heard of circuit breakers, and power conditioning for the control systems. In which case they deserve to be taken out by a rogue phone charger.
Way back when I used to do IT training I was sent over to Germany to teach a load of US Army guys TCP/IP. I needed to print something out so I found a spare IEC lead and plugged in a handy Laserjet.
Shortly afterwards a cloud of smoke (and a large portion of the army base being blacked out) revealed that US-specific models of Laserject want 110v and aren't keen on receiving double that.
If you had actually bothered to read *and comprehend* the article, it might have occurred to you that this event happened in Taiwan, which to the best of my knowledge, and despite protestations from mainland China, is not part of China proper, and not very communist at all.
But facts are not your forte, as you have demonstrated several times already
Stories (unverified) from my EE trades teachers many decades ago:
Phone company investigating excessive power draw on a line find a guy powering a basement packed with model trains from the 40volt phone-line float.
Power company investigating an unusually lossy major transmission line find a guy living adjacent to the line with big rolls of copper strung around his roof cavity powering his whole house.
The first one is false. If you load the phone line with more than just a meagre indicator bulb, the exchange will see this as "off-hook" and drop the voltage to 12 volts, still with not enough current available to drive a gnat's electric wheelchair, let alone a model train.
Living next door to a major exchange and somehow getting a few wires connected to the battery banks, that would work, but you sure want to have a fuse in there. Shorting out those banks can lead to serious fireworks. A painter putting down his tin of paint, bridging the bus bars, got the battery room painted in a flash, not unlike Mr. Bean's way of painting the room (but without wrapping the furniture first)
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