3-prong To 3-prong Adapter
Jacque Waiden
In 1969, Underwrites Laboratories started requiring 3-prong plugs for safety. Some people use the NEMA 1-15R adapters to plug their 3-prong cables into the old 2-prong outlets. These adapters prevent the cost of hiring an expensive electrician to replace your outlets.
Grounding provides electricity the path of least resistance back to the breaker and exiting to the main ground connection. When there is a fault, if there are no grounded outlets in your home, the easiest path for the electricity is through the metal of any electronic or home appliance you are using. This is dangerous and will cause an electric shock.
2-3 prong adapters will come with a small metal grounding prong attached to them. The prong is a square shaped piece of metal with a circle in the middle. This grounding prong is attached so you can connect your adapter to the grounding source. All you do is install the outlet cover plate screw through the hole in the metal ground pin and your adapter will become grounded.
When is this not true? If your outlet is not grounded your adapter will not be grounded, even if installed properly. There is a tool you can purchase to test your electrical outlets and determine if they are grounded or not.
When you start testing outlets check for any cracked, broken or damaged outlets and have them replaced. If cords and plugs start to hang or fall from your outlet that means it needs to be replaced. If you have tested your outlets and found they are not grounded, we recommend you contact a certified electrician to help you install and make the necessary updates. One option you have is to install GFCI outlets which will detect any faults, like water for example, and avoid shocking you by shutting off the power. GFCI will trip the circuit when necessary, avoiding electrocution.
Remember if you have not used the grounding feature properly on your 2-3 prong adapter it will not provide any safety for you and will pose a risk to you and your home when in use. The grounding pin should be connected to the electrical ground and without the proper grounding system in place, there is a great potential for electric shock.
2-3 prong adapters can be safe if grounded and used properly, however, they might not provide the best function. If you own a home with all 2-prong outlets it is not likely you will move the adapters around uninstalling and reinstalling them as you need to plug things in and out of your outlets. It can be annoying to unscrew and move the adapter every time you need to move it around your house. Another problem is being able to use multiple outlets on one plate, as the adapters can be bulky and may not allow you to use multiple adapters properly or at all on one outlet plate.
NEVER remove the ground pin of a 3-prong plug to fit into a 2-prong outlet always have the outlet changed to match the plug. Removing the ground pin from an adapter or using ungrounded outlets can lead to a fire, shock, or even worse.
These same concepts can apply to your dryer outlet and we have the product solutions you will need. For example to create a 3-prong dryer outlet, needed to match your dryer plug, from the existing 4-prong outlet you can use the AD14301030 compact adapter with grounding wire.
If you are looking for other solutions please contact us and we can help you with our FREE consultations, making sure you order the correct product the first time and avoiding you any hassle of return or exchanges.
Hello Melinda. Just going off the description, it sounds like your LED light is missing a transformer that most LED lights come with. Just to be certain, you can email a picture of what that plug looks like to ac-cr...@acconnectors.com.
I have an LED Christmas angel decoration that is supposed to light up. The plug on the end looks like a round ground male and a flat blade . The kicker is that the distance between the blades is much smaller than a std AC cord. What does this plug connect to?
We get it, you have an appliance with a 3-prong connector, but your home only has two-slot electric outlets. This is a common story in most older homes. Unfortunately, this extra convenience is offset by the increased risk to the safety of your family and your appliances.
We are not saying adapters are unproductive. If you are traveling abroad, you might need a dedicated adapter to charge your phone, laptop or to support personal appliances like a hairdryer. But overall, you should avoid using a three-prong adapter in any ungrounded outlet.
I live in an apartment that has essentially no 3-prong electrical outlets. I need to plug in a modest amount of computer equipment (which has a mix of 2- and 3-prong plugs), and I want to plug this equipment into surge protectors. Physically, I can accomplish this using cheap 3- to 2-prong adapters, but is that safe?
In part, my question is, what happens when a surge protector does its thing? One plausible scenario is that it dumps the excess energy into the ground conductor, which seems like it could pose a much worse problem than damaged equipment if that ground is poor or nonexistent.
That said, it's never considered safe to use bypass the 3rd prong (even with 2 to 3 prong adapters) and it is likely your insurance / the manufactures insurance will not cover damages caused as a result of such use.
It won't add a third prong to your plugs, but at modest cost for your landlord will protect his house (e.g. protect his sump pump, dishwasher, light bulbs, etc.). That's what you tell him. And it will protect your computers.
As for the point of use strips: it's true most will have three protection devices arranged in a triangle. But keep in mind neutral and ground are connected together at the panel anyway. From a surge point of view the 2-prong is not all that bad.
But point of use protection is not enough anyway, not in areas that actually have lightning. An "online" UPS can be a good substitute. But the best protection is to have both a whole house unit and point of use protection.
Why? There was a narrow period of time where a grounded wire was used, but outlets were still 2 prong. Thus it's possible the center screw on the outlet actually is grounded. If so the best thing is to install grounded plugs, but since you're renting, you can just use the 2 to 3 prong adapter.
Cheater plugs are also used to break ground loops in audio systems.[5] This practice has been condemned as disregarding electrical safety.[5][6] A safer and more reliable alternative is to use an isolation transformer made specifically for this purpose.
Cheater plugs were previously available with a short flexible grounding wire rather than a flat metal screw tab. This allowed use of the lower receptacle in a duplex outlet, which does not have a faceplate screw in the correct location for the screw tab. The grounding wire would be diverted around the adapter to reach the faceplate screw above it. However, this ground-wire style of cheater plug was discontinued when it was noted that a loose unattached grounding wire could accidentally become connected to the "hot" blade of a nearby outlet, potentially leading to electric shock. As an additional failure mode, the thin flexible wire could break unnoticed inside the insulation. Lastly, most of the early adaptors allowed accidental reversal of hot and neutral connections, because they lacked the widened neutral blade to enforce correct plug orientation.
Modern cheater plugs lack a flexible wire which could be accidentally misconnected. The flat parallel plug blades are polarized to prevent the hot and the neutral connections from being reversed. In addition, many versions have a molded obstruction bump on top of the adapter, to block the grounding prong and thus physically prevent forcible insertion of a 3-prong plug in the wrong orientation.[citation needed]
Three-prong plugs do not fit into the older, two-prong receptacles.[7] When used as intended, the ground pin of the 3-wire receptacle is to be connected to a grounded cover screw, or to an external ground. In 1969, Underwriters Laboratories mandated three-prong plugs on major appliances for safety.[7] At that time, only half of the receptacles in US homes were three-prong.[7] Wiring in most homes did not include a grounding wire. The screws and outlet boxes were either connected to the neutral, or connected to nothing. Only in some jurisdictions where 2-wire non-metallic cable was restricted and armored cable was required (and still in good condition), do cheater plugs work safely as intended. In 1971, the US National Electrical Code (NEC) required grounded receptacles in all locations of the home (effective January 1, 1974).[8]
In the professional audio and video fields, the cheater plug has been identified as a serious safety problem. Its casual use as a method for avoiding ground loops in analog audio and video signals (to eliminate hums and buzzes) is dangerous.[5] Bill Whitlock, president of Jensen Transformers, writes, "never, ever use devices such as 3 to 2-prong AC plug adapters, a.k.a. 'ground lifters', to solve a noise problem!"[5] Whitlock relates how an electrical fault in one device that is connected to its electricity source through an ungrounded cheater plug will result in dangerous, high current flowing through audio or video cables. Whitlock notes that in 1997, consumer audio and video equipment electrocuted nine people.[5]
The cheater plug is also recognized as a safety hazard in laboratory settings. For example, in August 2005, Tarun Mal, an associate professor at Cleveland State University, was electrocuted when he plugged a defective fluorescent lamp into a time switch using a cheater plug.[9] Subsequently, the state of Ohio issued seven citations to the university for unsafe electrical conditions.[9] The Scientist notes that four of the University's seven environmental safety experts agreed that use of the cheater plug "is not uncommon in US university labs".[9] Jim Kaufman, CEO of the Laboratory Safety Institute, says, "When you inspect labs, it's not unusual to find anywhere from one to seven that way."[9]
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