UK plugs have isolator on half the pin length - The coin wouldnt do anything. Or were old plugs without it ?

Kids please don't do this they will more then likely toss you out of school today, we had more freedoms when I was younger, back when you could actually bring your own large coffee though security at the airport try that today...

This is vandalism, its not matter of freedoms. But please. dont compare schools to TSA, and if your school is like forgetting that you are kids and expecting obedience, then its not a school worth staying in

The topic said what is the dumbest things you've ever done related to electricals, I'll take the credit it was dumb and I did it.. So hopefully others don't repeat it....

Ash the insulators on plugs where a new thing and they also cost more then the solid brass ones so there was a lot of them without insulators, we weren't rich students.. And why not compare schools to the TSA they are installing walk through metal detectors in schools, RFID identification cards, armed police officers, it won't be long till they get x-ray machines, and they also give out a free trip to jail for making a digital clock (not that I agree with it, I was a kid and did dumb kid things it's how you learn.)

About the freedoms if the teachers I had did things today like they did when I went though school they would all be fired or disciplined, One chem teacher blew up a sink, then there was this little issue with thermite causing it to pour all over the lab counter and burn through to the floor and head to the drain, we learned to dance that day, every fire extinguisher had a note telling one teacher not to use them on sleeping students even if it was to teach the rest of the awake students about sublimation of CO2 (the note didn't stop him, we learned never go to sleep in chemistry class again) then there was the hydrogen explosion taking out windows while refining copper, we learned hydrogen is explosive and methane is safer to reduce copper oxides, the physics teacher made a mercury filled barometer with a glass tube today if they bust a single florescent light they basically evacuate the school out of fear from mercury, we learned how to make a barometer and melt and bend glass tubing and safely handle mercury, vandalism was the kid who painted the teachers desk with Nitrogen triiodide it was in pieces when he threw his books on the desk you can actually set that stuff off with a low powered laser it's so unstable actually an alpha particle will set it off. every student had to write a full report on it and explain all the chemistry behind it, needless to say the students stopped that kids behavior pretty quick without them getting expelled.. But all around every student passed with well above average marks because school was fun and you learned everyday and after every event, nobody really got hurt, vaporizing a few pennies was just part of an average day (and you also learned to inspect plugs pretty quick because even my plugs got hit every now and then.)

Never stop learning..   

I had a bad habit as teenager of jamming a penny in those 13 amp 240 volt British plugs and sticking them back in the plug when it was switched off,  yep all those 13 amps plugs have a switch on the wall receptacle and leaving it for the next sucker to come along and turn it on and see the shower of sparks and all the lights in the building turn off because the penny was a perfect size to short out all the plug terminals so the GFCI / RCD would kill the mains power, and in the lab where they had a main power disconnect and they always turned it off when the room was empty, it was fun to stick small capacitors in the plugs across the line and neutral and waiting for the teacher to go and switch it on in the morning to quickly hear the loud bangs of them exploding and then switch it off quickly freaking out.. Kids please don't do this they will more then likely toss you out of school today, we had more freedoms when I was younger, back when you could actually bring your own large coffee though security at the airport try that today...

I just went and tried that after reading your post, and it does fit, I never realised a penny did (obviously I didn't switch it on! even though it wouldn't do anything as half the L&N prongs are now insulated anyway, so you'd have to get an older plug to do it on)

We also have the sleeving on the A and N prongs on the Australian plugs, they were only a recent introduction about 2003-4. Here's an old Australian plug (dirty, its on a heater that only gets used during winter and its very old)


Anyone notice the country of origin here? 

Wow, i take back my "dont compare". Your school is TSA

I went to school here in Israel in the 00's. It was a time when lots of terrorist attacks happened, mostly suicide bombings but sometimes other stuff like knife attacks. and of the knife attacks some were made by teens. The security was an armed guard and the principal or one of the teachers wold stand next to him in the morning, pointing at whoever in the incoming crowd who he does not recognize, so that one can be pulled aside (they then asked him who is his teacher and called that teacher to come and recognize). Then when school starts the gate is closed by electrical lock, if the guard recognizes who comes late he lets in, if he does not he calls out a teacher. The recognized students were never checked for anything. I brought in and out ballasts, luminaires, boxes of old Fluorescent tubes (nicely put aside for me by the janitor), desktop PCs and nobody asked anything

Our chemistry teachers were not as epic as yours Lodge. We were let to hold a bottle of liquid Mercury (without opening)in the intro course and see how it splashes inside, but later i went to Electronics (you could not do both Chemistry and Electronics because it was the same hours), but i dont know of any explosive accidents at the Chemistry class

We had our share of fun at Electronics though

The blowing capacitors and smoking resistors was all the time - though i opposed it (cause it was destroying good components), unless you go out and buy yourself the stuff you want to blow up. Nobody did that. But i made them to - i introduced the smoking resistor made of a pencil lead and the flaming steel wool, which they found more interesting and had to bring from home. As well as other pyro - the automatic flamethrower (with photoelectric control) made of automatic air freshner sprayer (with timer) that was replaced in the bathroom, wonders of Hydrogen and ligher fluid fumes in a closed can, and so on..

Our electronics teachers made their own share of bangs, mostly by mistake. Except one who plugged a 24V bell into 230V to show us how a bell works. He wired it up to a board with a doorbell button, and knowing that its not ok, he would click the button quickly (the bell did not burn out immediately, and did not warm up from a short click). But then one time the button welded (it was rated for 12V...) and he smoked the coil on the bell, the smell lasted for few days. Then there were the usual exploding chips because they connected 24V to a 74xx chip. One time one of the teachers had to see a physician because the exploding chip got in his eye, but he was fine

Mercury lamps: An Australian plug, Made in England! 

Mercury lamps: An Australian plug, Made in England! 

Correct! 

Dumbest thing I've done? Well, I remember submerging an extension cord under a bucket of water in the garden then plugging it in. All it did was trip the circuit breaker. The extension lead was old and about to get thrown out as the socket contacts were worn and making poor contact with anything.

Pencon made plugs for everyone it seems, i have some PC power cables with Israeli plugs from Pencon (and few more with the exact same plug branded as Volex). They are some of the best cables out there

Ash, it's not that they were epic, they knew how to make kids learn, you learn by mistakes and accidents, but if you add fire things that go bang or sex kids learn wonderfully and they remember it for life, they explore more and invent more, and that's chemistry, biology, and physics, if only math was as much fun but since you needed it for the later courses you just did it...

Beta5, yes they are a perfect fit they where cheap and plentiful as a student and best of all you don't even see them when it's plugged in, but I can see why they now use insulators 240 on 32 amp ring circuit is pretty dangerous even with an RCD protecting the building if something goes wrong...