Reminds me of the time I was in Dubai and tripped my breakers. They asked what happened, and I told em "apparently this universal power strip is not so universal as they claim"
If I ever see a news headline saying "A massive black out had taken place in Italy", I would immediately guess the answer of who caused it in the first place without even having a second thought
Hi I'm Italian ^__^ The sockets you see with the double hole are at 16 amps with 2.5mm cables. Many years ago, there were the sockets were separated those with small holes for the 10 amps had 1.5mm cables and the 16 amps for the connection, for example, of the washing machine. Today all the new electrical systems, generally they are made with the sockets are 16 amps with compatibility for small appliances that still use 10 amps. According to the legislation, the neutral is always blue, the phase can instead be brown, black or other colors, dependent on the complexity of the system to facilitate the recognition of the various sections of the housing structure. The voltage can vary from 220 volts to 240 volts. The electric line of the illumination is generally separated from the socket line. In every room of hotels or home, you may find specific protection interrupting for that room. The protection interrupting are connected after the electricity meter switch. At 9.16 minutes you are seeing a magic type socket, produced by the B-Ticino. Although security was greater than thorns and modern sockets, it did not have much diffusion. At minute 15.39, you are seeing a German spine Schuko Siemens, in fact it can be pushed inside a 16 amps and is dangerous, even if struggling to insert it, it should be understood that it should not be done... My dad did it :D However in Italy, security is a serious matter. If you have any specific questions ask, I was doing electrician many years ago.
Yeah there was likely no way to prevent the big Schuko plugs from insertion while keeping the small ones usable. In Germany we have a housing around outlets that should only accept the small ones, but that would likely interfere with Italian plugs.
To be totally clear, Shuko prongs are bigger than 10A prongs and in smaller 10A sockets they wont just slip easily in. You can push them in but it needs considerable force and the obvious enlarging of the plastic of the socket. Maybe in older sockets that are a bit more worn out the force might be a little less, but it still feels awkward to connect those there.
I correct you, the socket that is at 9:16 is not electric, but it is a standard bticino telephone socket, heart attack next to it there is also the rj11 socket it.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:BTicino_spina_e_presa_telefonica.jpg
There's no way he didn't ask permission from the hotel, X-D and just unscrew thing and try to trip the protection. He asked permission for sure. God bless.
Sometimes it’s better to ask for forgiveness than permission because otherwise the hotel be wondering what the heck you were doing. And no no no I do not know anybody else who would go overseas and travel just to see outlets I would I would totally not not not not not do that. There was another uk electricians channel that when he traveled look at the electrics can’t think of the name right now
Hi there, italian certified electrician here! Ground fault protection is not only mandatory everywhere, not only it has to protect the whole apartment, it went from best practice to mandatory to split the two circuits(lights and outlets) for extra protection and safety! (Every public accessible facility, be it hospital, hotel or whatever, has to check the time it takes to break the circuit just in case the GFP is starting to kick the bucket and replace the "slow" ones to keep staying open)
I’d love to imagine one of these days a receptionist recognizes him on check in and simply tells the maintenance guy to sit by the breakers all night just waiting till he trips them with his test.
@Ailsa Ni it's mandatory, but only in last probably 7 years, then it was for another XY years mandatory only for bathroom and kitchen. Nobody tells you to update to most recent standard (if you are not rebuilding), so old houses can have even old ceramic fuses.
as a Scottish electronics engineer living in italy, I'd advise you not to test it. anything that was built or comercially renovated after about 2000 should be okay, anything before that is pot luck as to whether they've even got a ground circuit, or even use breakers instead of fuses.
In North America, as I'm sure you all know black is the hot wire. So at 3:38, I thought "Black is neutral. Isn't black supposed L2 in 230V/400V three-phase? Because in Europe, blue is neutral.
In Italy we have 3 types of plugs: the 9:22 one (maximum 10 amps, called "small Italian socket"), the most common as 4:19 (maximum 16 amps, called "Italian socket") and the European standard socket at 15:17 (maximum 16 amps). What you said at 15:22 is usually wrong, you cannot insert a European male plug into an Italian female socket (that socket was worn out or just plain broken) so you always get a ground connection. In Italy we had 220VAC 50Hz (or 380VAC three-phase 50Hz) but now we have almost switched to the European standard 230VAC 50Hz (or 400VAC three-phase 50Hz). So somewhere in Italy you can still have 220V AC 50Hz (but I think you measured 222V AC at 1:45 just for the fluctuation of the power grid). Also: Every house or building in Italy has an RCD but we don't have a specific RCD just for the bathroom. As you reported correctly, normal trains run at 3KV DC while high speed trains use 25KV AC 50Hz which is a common European standard. I have never seen the outlet at 9.16. By the way, nice video!
Also we use to have at least two breakers, one for lights and the other one for sockets. Modern houses tends to have a pair of breakers (light/socket) for every room so if there's a fault somewhere you could isolate that room (part of it) and waiting for the technician without worrying about food in freezer
La presa a 9:16 è una presa telefonica anni 70 di proprietà della bTcino. Molto raro trovarla, si vede ancora in qualche vecchia scuola! The socket at 9:16 is a 1970s telephone socket owned by bTcino. Very rare to find, it is still seen in some old school!
@@MyNotSoHumbleOpinion mai capito il perché di quella presa quando c'era la classica tripolare... assomiglia alla magic bticino, anche di quella non ho mai capito lo scopo
La presa al minuto 9.16 non è una presa telefonica ma una presa “magic” (ormai obsoleta ma impedisce di invertire fase e neutro) The 9.16 outlet it’s not a telephone socket it’s a “magic” outlet (obsolete nowadays but it prevent you from inverting live and neutral)
I thought 230V was a compromise between the 220V used in mainland Europe and the 240V used in UK/Ireland. 220 volts is still standard because it is within tolerance.
My daughter and I have been watching your channel for years. She started to become interested in electronics at a young age. She played a joke for me where a capacitor blows up when I press a button. You have inspired so many. Keep it up.
I am an Italian electrician, black is not the neutral but the phase, blue is the neutral.. The system was connected upstream in reverse. For protection against shocks to the earth there must be an Automatic Differential Switch (7:19) 17:41 This makes no difference how the device plug is inserted, the earth is connected to the metal body of the device if the metal part is exposed to human contact, so however the voltage in the device circuit goes you are always protected. The device doesn't care how the voltage passes and this is our logic. 15:33 technically it would not be possible to insert the German plugs into the Italian ones with the holes in line, if that plug obviously enters someone has forced the insertion with a German plug by widening the holes, like you done, there are italian to germans adapters for those sockets. PS: however you risked a lot because on the phase excluding the neutral there are not 220/230 volts but 380 volts (380 √ 3)
On the phase excluding the neutral? What do you mean by that? It’s 220 to neutral and to ground. 380 to the other phases probably? But how would he come in contact with those?
Small explaination from an Italian SW engineer who grew up working with her father in cabling their whole home (he's a Electrical Engineer/architect): the three holes outlet is called "Bipasso", the small one is for 10A while the bigger one for 16A, the hole in the center is the ground. We also use the german "Shucko" plug (the round one) for heavier appliances (usually 16A appliances) that are sold worldwide (eg washing machine). Ground fault protection applies to the whole circuit in the home (all plugs are covered) as the (larger) breakers have it integrated (they're literally called "Salvavita", literally "life savers"). the "doors" in the plugs are a safety standard introduces around 15-20 years ago, so older plugs don't have it. The standard for modern circuits (at least the ones I saw my father design) is the following: main breaker -> room light breakers & room outlet breakers So, each room has two breakers, one for lights and one for outlets. Then, there's a main breaker for the whole house. They are all Salvavita (with GFP) - then we have smaller breakers (without GFP) for sub-sections (eg. left wall of the living room, right wall of the living room, kitchen appliances, kitchen usable outlets, etc)
Here, Schuko is the standard in Germany. And the plugs in the Video are 'compatibility plugs' that have an additional hole for countries that use ground that way.
Yes, and please note that it's not easy to plug shuko into standard Italian plug. It will eventually plug causing some damage to the socket. Forceful insertion will make you clearly feel you're doing something wrong like trying to insert diesel fuel nozzle into hole for gasoline refueling
@@AmstradExin The hole in the multi-country 7/7 plug is for groundin in French hermaphrodite sockets, which prevent reverse insertion but has no consistent standard as to which side is neutral. The metal rails on the side of the plug are for German-style sockets that (like the old Italian sockets) have nothing preventing people inserting plugs backward swapping live and neutral. In contrast, the national plugs in Switzerland and Denmark have well defined live and neutral positions with the grounding pin preventing reversal for grounded equipment. Ungrounded plugs are just 2 pins and are always reversible. Norway is the same as Denmark, but some villages have 2 lives and no neutral to keep the power on if something shorts live to ground on the power distribution poles.
9:16, that is usually refereed as a "bticino Magic" plug standard, it's very old and doesn't get used anymore the only difference with normal plugs is that it can't be reverted and it sits flush with the wall we stopped using those when we adopted the shuko(the round plug with the extra earthing) standard from Germany the outlets door are a MUST and required by standard the italian name is “gonne” (skirts) as you noticed we have a “small plug” and a “big plug” the small plug only goes up to 10A 220v and the big plug goes up to 16A , the standard Italian contract goes up to 3KW single phase 220v if you have more questions feel free to ask :)
Pretty sure we didn't adopt shuko, we just use it for some appliances, but that's it. Most houses don't even have a single shuko plug, and even newer ones have just a few shuko plugs in bathrooms and kitchens
@@TheoJouvin confirming the correct as being correct. The "magic" plug has a "bump" in the middle. this one is a BTI-2021 (no reference to the year 2021). It is no longer being manufactured... pretty much the whole world has adopted the RJ-11 standard for telephones.
15:22 actually that plug ("german" schuko) normally does not fit in that socket! That socket is either broken by somebody doing what you did previously (and it takes a LOT of force to do that the first time, the prongs are closer together and they're way thicker than the hole normally), or that socket is not up to standard. Glad you enjoyed your time here! I'm happy to know that at some point I was less than 20km from you, lol.
@@PaoloPaterna very cool, thank you!i just looked them up, -they look like they might be some sort of dual-phase type plug, im saying that because i noticed it has 4 pins, instead of 2 or 3.- oh no they are polarized three phase plugs, thats pretty cool.
Having the external breaker box be located next to receptions head is such a genius idea. It's not an event that should happen often, and when it does, you want to know about it as quick as possible. Between saving people's lives to stopping fires or starting evacuation before they grow large. Very simple and great idea.
@@Keneo1 tho this hotel didn't have it, there are sensors for some breakers that can be connected to a PC and can notify you if a breaker popped. :D they are expensive af tho.
As an electrical installation contractor myself these videos really did remind me about these basic but very important stuff, which he presents in a hilarious fashion. Can't imagine if I'm the hotel manager and there's some random dude tripping every single outlet he could possibly find lol
9:11 it's a phone plug by BTcino. In the 70s they tried to introduce a whole new type of plugs for electricity and phone called "Magic" providing extra safety. The project turned out to be a commercial failure, but some of these plugs can be found in hotels originally built in the 70s and 80s. That one in particular is a BTcino Living Classic 4521.
@@kuva Was a big high wall there that tried to stop me/A sign was painted said: Private Property/But on the back side it didn't say nothing -Woodie Guthrie
I wanted to say something about the "Shuko" inside the "Italian" standard outlet. It shouldn't fit, but with a LOT of effort you can force it in (i've never seen anyone do it btw). To me this indicates that the outlet where you put it was probably forced by other people in the past, tourists i assume, and slowly it became much easier to plug it in. Of course that's not intended and you will find that on an outlet that didn't receive abuse it won't easily fit.
If the hole in the plastic is large enough the contacts should bend the 0.8 mm. In Finland we had from the 30s to 50s grounded plugs with 4.8 mm pins and ungrouned with 4 mm and they grounded was intended to fit the ungrounded. Now this will not do good for the sockets in the long run.
In my experience at least in hotels and restaurants most of the plugs are of the type that Mehdi showed first that has two different set of holes or they are elongated. Good luck if they have the "magic" plug though like in the first room.
Yes, and the safety doors are there or absent depending on manufacture date. New ones the door is mandatory, the old ones it was optional, so the old sockets do not have them, but replaced ones do have them. The difference between 5mA and 30mA is the 30mA is the whole house, so using 5mA would result in nuisance tripping. The UK has solved that by making it mandatory on new to have each breaker be a RCBO in itself, each circuit being individually protected with 30mA, so a trip on one does not trip out the entire house. They even have AFCI built into them along with RCD and overload detection, in the same width as a regular 1 module wide DIN breaker.
@@SeanBZA For example in Belgium a 300mA whole house is mandatory unless you have a bad earth resistance which would require a 30mA for the whole house. For places that can have higher humidity (for example bathroom) a 30mA is mandatory for those circuits and depending how close sockets are to water taps it might even require a 10mA. So in every house you'll find at least two GFCI unless you use a whole house 30mA but that can be very annoying. About the safety doors in sockets : In more recent installations they are mandatory.
we have those in extension cords in germany as well. New ones are usually so stiff that you need a sledgehammer to get the plug in, so what i do first is open it, remove the whole child protection thing and be happy.
@@Sharpless2 I am not a fan of removing safety features. I have learned over the years that if you a buy a decent extension cord those safety doors work MUCH better. All extension cords I use are homemade with plugs and cable from reputable brands. It'll cost you a bit more but they'll last forever and are much safer if assembled properly. The worse part of cheap extension cords is the lack of decent cross-section.
3:38 There is something wrong with the colours of the wires, they are reversed. The Italian regulation says that the neutral conductor should be the blue one, probably a tecnician accidentally swapped the two conductors at some point upstream. It is't that unusual. There is more freedom about the colour of the live wire instead. It's usually black, brown, gray or red. With that said, i really hope you enjoyed your time in our country!
Likely that. It doesn't really matter with sockets as all Italian and most european plugs are not polarized and as such most EU appliances won't care which way you plug them in. The problem is with lights as a switch would work fine being installed either on the neutral or live wire but if it's on the neutral wire when you go to change the lightbulb the live wire will be "live" even with the switch in the "off" position.
@@FrankypankyV8 Doesn't that make installation bit of a pain since you need to mark the wires to know which one is for what. If you just reserve two colors for neutral and ground other ones can be whatever lowering the chance that someone might wire something incorrectly.
hi mehdi, I'm Italian and I can confirm that everything works like this here, usually in new buildings for about twenty years, breakers (lifesavers in Italian) have also been installed in the bathroom, but the reality is that there is always one or more protections, for example in my house the electric line of the lights and the one of the electric sockets are separated, if a socket is short-circuited the lights can be used, just to go and reset the "lifesaver" :) in addition there is another breaker upstream before the electricity meter (in case one of the two downstream does not work correctly), so in my case, if we consider the bathroom as a starting point, there are 3 breakers before the electricity meter.
yeah, agree my 2 floor - 100 sqm years of construction 1300, totally rebuild in 2018, have one lifesavers for each room, plus a thermal breaker each one on electric socket linem, one lifesaver for light each floor, and totally separeted electric line for air conditiong, induction and oven, and wood pellet auto stove too... and yes, everything ends in one single, huge electric box at the ground floor... quite a mess hide it, but safety first
In my house (built in 2008~) I have a breaker for each room + externals and a lifesaver that shuts down the entire house. But the real question is... *how the hell did he manage to plug in a Siemens plug into a regular one?!* I've never been able to do that... Lol
@@manupaz the schuko can be fitted in crappy plastic outlets with no problem at all, I’ve done it multiple times with class 2 devices Note to Mehdi, we tend to use adapters for the schuko to keep the grounding connected
I love the fact that the whole family is enjoying the beautiful views and the trip and Mehdi just sticks probes into sockets and pops the breakers. I love this channel
I’m headed to Italy with my family in a couple of months too. Glad to see Mehdi took the time to do so already so that I can visit the country armed with all the TRULY important information
When Mehdi was fidgeting with the potentiometer in the wall socket, my lights started flickering and the storm knocked my power out for a few minutes lol. Thank you for the immersive experience Mehdi, I appreciate you engaging the viewers more 😆
I love this guy. Given the choice between full vacation and no work and 7/8 vacation and 1/8 work, he chooses to vacate AND work! Shows he truly loves his job. Love you Mehdi!!
Fun fact: as you can see at 7:21, in Italy we have Ground Fault Protection breakers commercialized as “Salvavita” which literally means “Lifesaver” Anyways, props to you who managed to shove a Schuko 15:28 into that socket. All of my attempts always miserably failed
@@Fneeps_TF2_Experience As other people said, that's just the average AS Roma fan gathering. And yeah, they're basically "allowed riots" in Rome (the only thing a particularly disrupting fan risks in these cases is DASPO which is a prohibition to participate to sporting events for a certain period of time) so they're really not much discouraged, if at all. I don't really know how safe it is to walk by them (it's better to avoid them, that's for sure), but what I can say is that foreign teams' fans frequently leave the city in a far worse state than they do
9:15 that's an old telephone outlet. It looks very similar to the so called "Bticino Magic" plug. It was created in the 70s as a more safe and irreversable plug by the italian company Bticino, but it really never took off, in fact it only really lasted until the early 90s.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telephone_jack_and_plug#/media/File:BTicino_spina_e_presa_telefonica.jpg Pretty similar to the old french standard. Quite logical since it's located next to a RJ45 or RJ11 plug
Italian sockets have two side holes 10A (small) and 16A (large) then there are sockets like those in the video which are called 10/16A sockets with double holes, the shuko plug (CEE 7) cannot be inserted in either in the 10A socket nor in the 16A and not even in the 10/16A because the center distance is different, only by forcing it a lot you can insert it but you shouldn't because the earth is not connected, the Italian legislation requires at least a differential general switch and separate switch for sockets and light (16A for sockets and 10A for lights) protected against short circuit and overload, 0.01A RCDs are sometimes installed in bathrooms for greater protection, these are the minimum required by law but usually many more switches are installed in new plants, the colors of the cables are blue: neutral, yellow green: earth, all the other colors: live, specifically black, brown and gray are used for the three live or fixed live, all the others for the controlled live (lights , relay etc)
In Italy, local regulations mandate the use of a RCB for the whole house (we usually use more than one, for example one for the outlets and one for the lights) and there is a good reason for that: We use a TT system instead of the more common TN. In the TT systems all of the ground wires coming from the outlets and the permanently installed appliances are connected to one or more earth rods buried around the building.... and nothing else. Every building shall have his own ground which must be separated from the mains (no connection between neutral and ground is allowed). In case of a dead short between the live and the ground, the fault current shall travel inside the ground wire, inside the ground rods, than shall travel trough the earth and coming up from the ground rods installed inside the transformer shed to reach the neutral connection..... this means that the earth system shall be able to handle the entire fault current in order to trip the breaker!!!! Using a RCB vastly simplify the things (now the earth rods are required to carry only 30mA instead of hundreds of amps!!!) BTW: Light blue = neutral Yellow wire with green stripes (bicolor wire) = earth Brown, black and gray = live conductors (any of these colors are allowed in a single phase environment, for example to have a distinction between circuit1, circuit2 and lights, but of course three different colors are useful in a 3 phase environment). Any color (except light blue and yellow/greeen) = switched lives (for lighting fixtures). The electrical distribution system is 400V 3-phase with neutral (subscriptions up to 6kW are supplied in single phase between one phase and neutral, larger subscriptions are supplied with all of the 3 phases).
The ground rod should be able to handle more than 30mA. If it has a high resistance the voltage will be 30mAxresistance. Having a resistance under 3 Ohms is good because ven if the 30mA gfci is faulty it will handle the high current and trip a normal breaker.
@@mernok2001 Of course, the lower is the resistance, the better is the protection (and below a certain level the ground can also be able to dump enough current to trip a breaker) but there are some problems: First of all, making a very good ground in some places (eg, where there is a rocky soil) can be tricky and costly. Second, in a TT environment you cannot "cheat" by connecting your ground to the neutral wire: this operation is illegal and can also trip the main breaker inside the meter (many power companies check for current imbalances between live and neutral and trip the breaker in case of a 500mA difference). Third, to trip a breaker you either need a current a bit higher than the designed current for quite a long time or at least 10x the designed current to get an instant trip: if the current that the ground system can dump is higher than the designed current but smaller than the instant trip current, the breaker needs some time to trip and everything that is connected to this ground become connected to the live conductor..... the safety ground is no longer safe!!!.
@@teslacoiler I saw a video of some people reconstructing the type of grounding Nikola Tesla used for his Wardenclyffe tower. They got 0.44 Ohms is I remember correctly. I bet they could get even better value by using longer ground electrodes and wetting it with an electrolyte like sodium carbonate solution.
@@mernok2001 ground rods are expensive. Idk why yall stuck on grounding capabilities. It’s just better that you would only let 30mA rather than the full fault current is why the RCD/GFCI are good. Its not that ground system cant handle the full fault but why would u want full fault current? Food for thought, if no breaker trips, it will see full fault current and continue to flow until someone discovers it by accident. It could be a few amps or may not cause fire but could still kill someone unsespecting. What if u had a regular breaker that trips at 15Amps but the fault is 3, quite enough to kill. Ground should sink it but there is paint on the wire or the box went rusty, whatever scenario increases the ground resistance so that it would rather flow thru a body, a GFCI/RCD would have caught such an event. Its a shame we don’t have whole home RCD in America
@@Wtfinc A 30mA gfci is only a supplimentary protection.You must still have protection if it fails.In France they use a 500mA gfci for the entire building and 30mA gfcis after that for separate circuits.If the 30mA fails the 500mA main will trip.Also keep in mind that water and gas pipes must be bonded to ground.(unless plastic of course).They will further improve grounding.
By the US standard for electricity Europe is a paradise of safety, when done the right way, you can even open any panel and still be safe, all wire connection are in recessed area and so bare wire if the isolation was stripped the right length. In us you will find a lots of bare busbar and bare wire even for domestic panel. Even the ground is isolated in europe.
Ground protection is mandatory. The 30 mA limit is set to prevent heart attacks (above that current the heartbeat becomes unreliable) . Furthermore, "ground protection" is not the best description: the breaker just relies on the difference between live and neutral so it can be activated even if no ground is present. Ground is there to allow easy way of discharge overcurrent but if you e.g. touch live with naked and wet feet the breaker activates.
You visited one of the oldest cities in Italy. I designed some electric implants, so I can confirm: Italian plugs have a design that prevents the insertion of a single terminal, and 2 different plug rated to 10 A max vs 16 A. Every house has differential breaker just under the main switch. Even our suppliers meters include a differential with idn 0,003 A So that the whole implant is protected from the source. Problems (in home environment) starts because we put in series a lot of differential breakers with the same idn rate so you are not granted that is the nearest one the that breaks when something goes wrong. We should put decrescent idn and reaction times switches in order yo perfect the system. In some hotel bathroom or other applications we have 0,001 idn so is safer, and hopefully you'll break terminal circuit instead of the main one for a local problem.
We've got selectivity-rules to prevent such situations from occuring in The Netherlands (and probably Europe, as the NEN and IEC-standards are ever more integrated). Special tables list which breaker-characteristic and tripping-current can be used after another breaker, without running the risk of having them both trip due to the same fault. However, especially main fuse links, that protect the line coming into the home have a tendency to be weakened from earlier abuse or even temporary overcurrent situations at just an amp over their rating: they can last a very long time before the fuse link breaks at such low overcurrents. A nice dead short behind a regular B10 breaker can then also kill the main fuse (a 25 Amp slow-blow) easily. About the current ratings: are you sure you didn't put a zero too much in your tripping currents? 0,03 Amp is a regular current for RCD's to have to trip (while my experience as an electrician building cabinets, where every RCBO and RCD was tested before the cabinet would leave the factory, was that most of them would trip at 18 to 21 mA).
Why spread fake news? The device present in the Italian "meter" is a C63 circuit breaker with a breaking capacity of 6000 A, there is no differential switch!
@@weeardguy In Italy, many electricians aren't very-well-taught on selectivity, especially for thermal-magnetic breakers. There are tables list from the breaker manufacturers which allow for coordination of cascading brakers, but they aren't generally followed (in residential wirings at least, perhaps not in industrial ones).
@@Laigh I've read somewhere that the old ENEL analogue meter used to have a ground fault switch, but surely enough it hasn't been around since they've swapped it with the electronic one in the early 2000s
Hi Medhi, i'm italian and i'm now explaining you some things :) Here in italy you must have a 30ma braker to cover all the house. Then in newer homes you have 3 brakers, 1 16A 30ma for plugs (the 16A plugs are the ones with the bigger holes or with the small and big holes together), 1 10A 30mh for lights (10A are also the plugs with only the small holes), and the one 5ma to cover only the bathroom area (they must be all in the same place and in a visible spot). Bye Bye
10A seems excessive for a lighting circuit, especially considering let through energy and cable sizing. Also, I've never seen a 5A breaker before.. what brand do they use?
Love how Mehdi is the only guy who can take a nice trip to Venice and rather than talk about the local culture instead says "How can I mess with the electrical in my hotel room!?" 🤣
The live and neutral look "double-drilled" because Italy used to have slightly different sized outlets for lamps vs appliances w/ electric motors, because they billed those at different rates in the old days.
@@sys-administrator except with Tesla and Edison operating in America, America invented household electricity and the central grid. Why do you think the US plug standard is so relatively dangerous and called type A or type B; it was the first invented and before safety design.
I am an electrician in Northern Italy and the 2 different plugs are for different circuits. The smaler one is for the as we call it Light circuit witch has a 10A braker and 1.5mm² wires for smaller appliances and a second "Force circuit" with bigger and thiccer plugs, 2.5mm² wires and a 16A braker. Also we have seperate 16A brakers for things like wasching maschines, electric stoves or furnaces and dishwashers.
Other people : "The vacation trip was great, might as well take good rest at the hotel." Mehdi : "Haha, this breaker need to be test, cuz it be a good trip to see."
The word (photo) Camera, comes from the latin Camera Obscura that was the first device used to project and sometimes paint images (manually). It literally means dark room.
@@hussainbharmal5998 The modern English word would be chamber. And camera in Italian is via Latin camera which in turn comes from greek kamara. I googled the etymology :D
15:22 yes, while you can forcefully plug it in that way, in reality here in Italy we use what we call a “siemens” adaptor for that kind of plug, so that you can still get ground connection and it will plugin just fine 😊
@@matteocastellani5122 Here in Australia, I have seen musical equipment with the ground pins cut off by hacksaws "to get rid of the hum". But, I should warn you that my sister is booked to visit Italy next year. When she was in France, she managed a spectacular tripping event by forcing an Australian hair dryer plug into the power socket in her hotel.
For application where it is important which wire is live and neutral, for this you can get standarized connectors. They are called CEE conectors and are available for 230V and 400V.
@@hellzila Heat pumps. Car chargers. The occasional induction stove, though most of those just use each phase with the neutral for 230V and are just spreading out the load. Still, I had to install 5x4mm² on a 3-phase 25A breaker the other day for a 17KW Aga english style furnace.
it could be rated higher but you don't see it usually in 230/400v country. that thing is high enough to not need different voltage for most of industry what device actually uses 400v eh, let's see. ovens, stoves, water heaters use it indirectly by wiring heaters into different phases for load balancing and less current in one phase directly it would be motors, if you have larger home workshop. my grandfather even built lawnmower. no it's not power, it's 400w, just uses it for rotation iirc bigger ground source heat pumps could draw 400v so they evenly split the load while one could argue on safety, compared to 120/240v it starts at "maximum" there, with added benefit for going higher. in us they actually fixed that later by providing here-ridiculous 200a
The hotel where the GFCI tripping didn't also shut off the lights is an Italian thing. Prior to only a few decades ago it was common in Italy for buildings to source the electricity for their lighting fixtures and sockets from different providers, and consequently on buildings that were electrified in that era the sockets and lights are on completely separate circuits.
What is the advantage of using two providers? Since lighting is a lot less power, why not just get that from the same provider as the sockets? Is it incase one fails, so you can still have some power? Doesn't this mean two grids and more pylons?
@@lambertovitali3152 They used to be taxed differently and even ran at different voltages. Back when they were fully separate providers lighting ran at 127 volts.
Honestly now i just wonder why we ever thought putting the lights on the same circuit as everything else was a good idea. You know, tripping hazards in the dark when the hair dryer breaks and all that. I wonder if there's any disadvantages to putting the lights on a separate circuit, other than cost of additional materials... Because honestly, i'd kind of want that to be standard.
As an Italian I have always appreciated having a lot of style on electrical sockets. We can choose many different brands (Vimar, bTicino, Feb etc ..) . Standard boxes (503/504/507) are built into the walls which house the plates with the modules (which we call fruits). Furthermore, all electrical cables must pass inside corrugated pipes so that they can be removed. Finally, the electrical panels use the din standard, so it is possible to install different types of elements such as circuit breakers, differential, home automation modules, etc.
No: salvavita is a product name copyrighted by BTicino, its actual name is differential-switch (RCD) if magneto-termic-differential switch (rcd with mcbo combined)
@@davidebacchi9030 Actually the name is just "(Interruttore) Differenziale" aka differential (switch/breaker). The "(Interruttore) Magnetotermico-Differenziale" aka magnetothermic-differential breaker is the combo of both a regular over-current breaker and an RCD (these combined breakers are know as RCBOs in Canada/Europe and GFCIs in the US). Differential switch/breaker is actually a much better name than "residual current device" as it describe what it does and how it works: It breaks the circuit whenever it detects that the differential between the current going in the circuit (through the live wire) and the current coming out of it (through the neutral wire) is above a certain threshold (because it means that it's exiting the circuit through a path it is not supposed to, like your body and then the ground).
Alright, time to explain some things, from a fellow Engineer, @ElectroBOOM :) 1:43 - the "double-driled" outlet is what we call a "bipasso" (double-base): it's shaped like that because it can receive both the old 16 A, 230 V standard we used to use up until the late 2000s and the "Europlug" (10 A, 230V) which is slightly smaller and has the prongs closer to each other. Good thing that the ground is still in the middle :) 1:48 - Usually in Italy the end user can see anything between 220 V and 240V, it depends on how recent and powerful the distribution is at the cabinet upstream. 2:29 - In Italy it's not mandatory to have GFCI plugs because, well... they don't work as well as a magnetic-thermical-differential breaker (MTD) does if well-chosen. We have quite strict standards on what size to put for any kind of use :) 3:08 - By UNI EN standards, Green/Yellow is ground, Black is neutral, Blue/Brown is live. The breakers you've measured are Schneider Electric's C10 class (which is a magneto-thermic breaker with a differential unit) which is way more than adequate for home use. C10 refers to the UNI EN classification: "C" curve (the way it evaluates the runaway current to ground, the C one is extremely sensible) and 10 is the Amperes it will lwt through in normal usage. If you want to see the tripping current, you'll have to see the I(delta)n value stamped on it. Quite safe, I'd say: it doesn't need ground fault, because it IS the ground fault :) 5:28 - That's the "Europlug" standard, 10A, 230/240 V. Small, but still useful. If you need something beefier (like, need to power a PC continuously or a microwave oven) you'll likely find a 16A plug (the "Italian Standard") or a SchuKo/UNEL plug.
But isn't the EU standard brown/black=live and blue=neutral?? At least that's what Wikipedia says and how it is in Germany. Seems very dangerous to just seitch those two colors.
@@YourMJK When you read a technical directive, you have to be careful of what norm agancy you're referring to. For example... UNI EN ISO is "International Standards Organization directive, as passed down to the European Centre for Normation, translated and adapted by the Italian Normative Union". You can see how "some" parts can be different (for example, DIN/VDE require different colours for live and neutrals than UNI) as long as the fundamental parts of the standard (how to apply it, what parts to use, how to use them...) are exactly the same.
Quick notes while watching the vid: - we usually use one centralized rcbo and not on outlets; - lol black is not supposed to be the neutral; - yes sometimes it happens that you trigger both the local protection and the one before that; - oh come on don't call them fuses they are magnetothermic protections; - voltage to the low voltage customers is 230v +/-10%; - we tend to place "fuse" boxes behind paintings and mirrors; On a side note I think that all considered we have one of the best electrical codes around.
I live in Denmark so the rules obviously may differ to Italy, but there are probably similarities. In a new home live would be brown and neutral blue. But in older homes the wires can have all kinds of colors. Black for neutral is pretty common in that case.
@@coolguyflex yeah blue/brown here too. And yes, older houses are a mess. But blue has always been neutral here because black can be used for live wires too! That's the problem.
@@coolguyflex Its interesting that Denmark only allows 13A for 1.5mm2 wire despite its colder climet but in Australia they have no problem with 20A on 2.5mm2.
@@coolguyflex In Germany, it's brown for live and blue for neutral as well, and green-yellow for ground. Older installations often had black for live, grey for neutral and red for ground.
The strange C shaped outlet @ 9:16 is a proprietary outlet called "Magic outlet". It was invented by BTicino as an irreversible outlet and it never really caught on. Now I think it's not produced anymore. The F type plug (or shuko plug) should not be pluggable in a standard italian outlet as you did, because the teeth are larger. However, you can easily force it in as you did. The "doors" are mandatory in every outlet, the one you saw without them was probably broken. The nice thing in italian outlets is that are way more compact (and modular) than standard european and american ones.
Honestly, I think these countries should feel honored that Electroboom wanted to fly there, just to trip their breakers. No breaker is a true man until tripped by him at least once.
Mehdi needs to make or commission a first person horror game, where you start by testing for GFCI, and you must roam the halls of the hotel to find the breakers before hotel maintenance or management finds you. I would buy it.
I can imagine the hotels around the world just presenting him with a fact sheet about the wiring of the building in the future. He'll go to check in and they'll say "now try not to trip our circuit's you"
Exactly what I was thinking. There will be a day, where he enters a Hotel and gets a Tour to all breakers, a fact sheet and diagrams of all the wiring, without asking for it. Just in order for the hotel staff to prevent other guests from sitting in the dark. 😁
I like how his wife and daughter are just setting up the pace for the sightseeing without any regards whatsoever for his shenanigans. Except when they had to run, obviously.
i'm an Italian and i can confirm that all houses have at least one GFCI (my house has two cause security reasons). 9:16 hahahaha is a Magic outlet (seriously it is called Magic). invented by BTcino was a standard before italian plugs had the plastic protection on wires and the "doors" for outlets. was a standard that CAN'T shock you because they only have the pit with conductive metal. that standard died faster because was too expensive and can be connected only in a way (useful for DC power). 10:59 yes here in Italy we have the light network and the force network (force= everything that isn't a light). 11:10 seems that these breakers are for the water heater. 12:05 xD semms that you came at a manifestation (yes these type are pretty common now [sadly]) 14:35 yes they trips at 30 milliamps but because here in italy houses (expecially old houses) have some dispersion so a 5 milliamp GFCI will pop when activated. 15:25 some people do it, and sometimes that has not a good ending. but quality outlets have the small hole literally SMALL so only the italian standard plug can enter and u have to force a lot the skhuko to pass trought the hole (and u risk to break the outlet)
In Italy neutral is treated as active part. So we can swap phase and neutral and still protected aginst shock. In other countries they protect against short circuit and RCD are not used (sometimes protect only phases). In that case they have to have a correct place for phase and neutral.
3:35 This is wrong, I mean the hotel got it wrong. According to standards neutral should always be light blue. For other wires: ground - green and yellow, phases - brown, grey or black. In another words they mixed up black phase and blue neutral. (According to what you measured)
15:23 The problem is not only the missing ground there. If you put a Schuko plug inside a 10/16A plug like you did you'll end breaking the pins inside the socket. Usually you'll feel quite a lot of resistance during insertion. But everybody does that all the time so you probably didn't feel any resistance in plugging in, because the plug was already deformed
Nice video! Btw in Italy, if you want to certify any electrical system, you must have ground fault detection at each housing units (hotel room, apartment, house, etc.), plus you must use only double insulate wirings, only certified plugs, and the whole system has to be validated by a certified technician, otherwise the system will be declared illegal and it won't be possible to be used by anyone (owner included). It is of course quite expensive, but a strict safety regulation helps to reduce fires and shocks
9:17 that is a proprietary phone plug by Bticino. Luckily I had ad adapter from that to a rj11 male connector so that I could've figure out how to wire the new plugs I was going to install
He is asking for the rectangular plug wich it's called a magic plug. And it's intended to identify wich its the neutral and live wires as it can be only connected in one way
@@ivanokmunoz It's actually not a Magic power plug. It's a phone connector, same series as Magic, but not compatible (for obvious reasons) with Magic power plugs
I imagine a detective following a suspicious trail of tripped breakers across Italy to walk into your hotel room with you, your cables and camera pointed to your handy work. 🤣 Busted red handed!
My man, I am crying. I am an Engineer in Italy, we use a specific color for wiring so that everyone can recognize it when going for maintanence. Yellow/green = ground Black - Grey or Brown = live Blue = neutral The fact the installer used blue for live and black for neutral makes me really mad
Italian fan here! The 2 sizes of plugs were historically meant for 10A connection (smaller one) and 16A connection (larger one), but it's something dating back almost a century ago, today, to my knowledge, the only circuit protection to pop open over 10A is usually the lightbulbs one, the standard for all the plugs is a 16A magnetothermic breaker for every plug line with a single GFCA on top of everything. Also, the standard neutral is blue, and the brown/red/grey wires are for the live wires (different color for different phases), so the Venice hotel had the wiring done in the opposite way! As for the circular plugs, we nickname them "German plugs", and we usually use adapters to plug them to connect the earth too. Fun fact, an European standard for plugs exist, but never got in use. It's similar to the ones you found in Italy, but have the earth offset to the side so live and neutral can't be swapped. You can immagine changing the standard would need every home and applicance to be updated, so it was never used.
@@luca210210 No the Swiss, Danish and English plugs have the earth at 3 different offsets, to give no country a benefit the new standard chose a 4th offset so everybody would suffer equally. Brazil chose the new plug but changed it slightly just to be different.
