Why are so many electrical plugs designed in such a way that they cover adjacent sockets?
In: Engineering
The answer is that one person’s genius idea conflicts with another person’s genius idea.
This is what a “traditional” North American power strip looks like. https://images.homedepot-static.com/catalog/productImages/1000/07/075cbb2d-67f5-404b-bee7-962e0712de4e_1000.jpg
When you try to plug in a “traditional” wall wart / ac adapter – this is what happens – https://www.cableorganizer.com/images/power-strip-liberator/images/before-after-powerstrip-liberator.jpg (ignore the bottom part with the short cords).
Everyone realized that this was a problem.
So, power strip manufacturers rotated their sockets 90 degrees. This works really well. https://cdn.thingiverse.com/renders/ea/58/dd/00/b8/909a55594018529fd8a98d200a53e0b5_preview_featured.JPG
Device manufacturers also rotated their plugs like 90 degrees and made them skinny, like this. This also works well. https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Ftse1.mm.bing.net%2Fth%3Fid%3DOIP.zbXpgG3Xnd6KVtfWVL0xCwHaEm%26pid%3DApi&f=1
But the two solutions are generally incompatible. If you try to put a rotated plug into a rotated power strip, you end up with the same problem all over again – with a plug covering multiple sockets. http://rasterweb.net/raster/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/powerstrip2.jpg
So now everything just sucks.
The “solutions” are to:
* make the adapters small enough to not take up more space than the socket itself (only possible with low power adapters like USB chargers)
* add a cord to the adapter instead of plugging it into the wall (increases cost and contributes to “rat’s nests” of wires)
As a consumer, you can buy short extension cords, a power strip large enough to handle both types of plugs, or multiple power strips. But all of those cost money.
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