Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Polarized plugs / receptacles

What's the purpose ? Pretty even mix of polarized v. non polarized of receptacles and plugs at our house.

To keep you on your toes..

Safety, helps keep us alive.

The reason for polarized receptacles is because of divorce being so common. Engineers design this stuff to the simplest, stupidest lowest level possible. The divorced wife or abandoned african female. If you change a standard bulb 'Edison 26' when the socket is hot, you can get a shock on an old non polarized circuit if you touch the female socket. So, now we have a polarized system, the neutral is grounded and reads zero volts to earth ground if you touch it when it is hot. So, ladies, just for you little princesses...assuming you have the skills to change a bulb, now you need not overburden your mind by having to remember to shut off the switch before you change the bulb.
Also, the Chinese schidt flooding our markets, need not be equipped with double pole switches. Ah, life is good.

Some new devices, electronics, are polarity specific. Old light bulbs and the like didn't care which direction the electricity flowed.

Wayne...jeezus, it's called alternating current, the f....ing polarity changes 120 times a second.

True. I just solved a problem today where polarity was an issue.

I have seriously lol'd reading this thread.

bruinruin;
Good evening sir, I hope the first week of August was a good one for you and all in your world are well.

The first time I heard of such a thing, I'd moved a wall plug at work - didn't call the electrician as any idiot can do it, correct?

Well..... that receptacle was for the TigerStop Fence on a pneumatic chop saw, which is computerized.

When I couldn't get it working properly, I plugged in something else electric, say a drill and of course it worked fine. So I called TigerStop and they were extremely helpful actually, the tech asking me if I was sure that the polarity was correct on the receptacle.

"The what sir?" was my response and of course now I was the idiot who couldn't do it!

I called our regular electrician who was busy that day, but explained to me how to wire the receptacle correctly and of course the TigerStop worked perfectly thereafter.

So ends my tale of learning what polarity entailed.

All the best.

Dwayne

With a polarized line, if there's a short in a tool or appliance, there's no current after the switch for safety. If the polarity is reversed, the entire tool is still hot.

C'mon man.......ever see a circuit tester?

You are not alone

It works the same as polarized glasses. Polarized electricity lets you see if there are any fish in your walls.

Also, it's the government. One wire is Republican and the other one is Democrat. The Republican side does all the work and the Democrat side just takes all the power back again.

LMAO

LMAO most of you have no fricking idea.
Retired IBEW.

Traveler, Please, Help us out, life is hard enough without us old farts wallowing in stupid too. I thought the 'new' receptacles ensured the narrow blade would be hot and the wider blade would be neutral. As I thought the word 'polarity' is normally used, it is primarily used in DC. In AC, the polarity is switched 60 times a second? Looking at an oscilloscope trace, half the wave is on the positive side and half the wave is on the negative?

I bet you miss your coffee breaks don’t you?

Rocko, would the Libertarians be the neutral? Or, the crazy leg?

Clearly, the third wire is color-coded. It's the Green Party. Dedicated to the earth. It has no power at all.

The industry is calling them polarized outlets, right or wrong. It's now the accepted terminology so we're stuck with it just like we're stuck with clip for magazine, bullet for cartridge, and assault rifle for semiauto.