This ingenious folding power plug design efficiently shaves off the extra bulk of a standard UK 3-prong plug, while increasing safety and ease of use. It has recently been entered to compete for the 2009 James Dyson Award and has been determined a shortlisted entry. Check out their entry page for more information, photos, and sketches.
When people carry laptops with U.K plugs in a bag, it always causes problems such as tearing paper, scratching laptop surfaces and, sometimes, it breaks other stuff. ‘Folding Plug’ changes the shape form the normal U.K plug into a 10mm thickness object, solving these damaging problems.
16 thoughts on “UK folding plug”
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Very nice but I just use a 2 pin with a Bic biro top to open the gates in the socket.
Whilst the design is very neat, having the fuse holder in the position shown would allow contact with the live pin when extracting the fuse.
If the fuse holder was at the top of the plug then the live pin would disconnect first and there’s no risk of ending up holding one end of the fuse whilst the other end contacts the live terminal as its extracted.
@1
why in the world would you remove the fuse while the plug is in the socket?
Lesson 1 when you’re designing a new product.
If it physically CAN be done to the product then someone at some point someone will do it. Especially children. It doesn’t matter what the use model suggests you have to make these things idiot proof.
It’s a nice idea but I’m not sure I understand the arrangement of the live and neutral conductors. Rotating the pins to a make/break position wold be less than ideal due to contact wear and if they are hard wired then that rotational movement is going to be tough on the conductor strands.
But, it’s a nice concept and it would be nice to see those old UK plugs slimmed down a bit.
I’m thinking the current design might be driven by the BSI safety standard. Although this design looks practical, it would be all moot if it is unsafe.
It seems that you could easily plug this in without unfolding the protective/insulating ‘wings’ over the line & neutral pins. Given this I honestly can’t see how it can meet BS-standard.
Also, I can’t see this fitting neatly into a wallwart, so you will still need to carry a separate power supply ‘brick’…
It is a nice idea though.
Perhaps the fuse thing could be solved by making it removable from where the pins are. Instead of pulling it out from the back, you have to remove the plug before you can access the fuse.