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All these cable stories always make me wonder: Is it possible to design a safe gender-less power plug? By that I mean one that has no male and female end but tw

All these cable stories always make me wonder: Is it possible to design a safe gender-less power plug? By that I mean one that has no male and female end but two symmetrical ones. That would not only be safer but also more convenient as there would only be one type of such cable, instead of three: (female-male, female-female, male-male).

kevin_thibedeau 4y ago
There is the Anderson connector for DC applications. The concept could be extended with a center ground contact and retractable shields.
mrweasel 4y ago
I suppose yes. I can certainly imaging a few designs, but they would all be more expensive. Most of our electrical infrastructure is old, like really old. Modern LED light bulbs screw into a socket that over 100 years old. We run 240V to electronics that immediately transform it down to 48/24/12 or even 5V, so why even run 240V to anything beyond maybe a handful of places in an average home? It's not like you can get hurt or killed with lower voltages, but overall it would be safer.
- vel0city 4y ago
  > why even run 240V to anything beyond maybe a handful of places in an average home? While I might end up only wanting 48/24/12/5V for a number of things in my home, I may still want a good number of total watts in a room. Sure, most of the components on my desktop are running off 12/5/3.3V, but its spreading that out across a lot of wires. It would have to be a pretty beefy cable to send 500W at 12V to my desktop, that's ~42A of current! Compared to delivering it as 120V at the wall, where that 500W is then only 4.2A, which does not need nearly as beefy of wire. And even then, that's just the desktop. We still have another 100W of monitors, probably another 15W of lighting, my phone charger will use 20W, a ham radio that can do 200W. I'm going to need some really beefy wires to handle the same 1800W like what I currently have in each room of my house.
gpm 4y ago
USB-C? Scale up the size as needed... but if you don't have smart devices on each end you have more issues than just the plug... you don't want people plugging wall sockets into wall sockets for obvious reasons.
- vel0city 4y ago
  USB-C is not genderless. The cable is physically different from the port on my laptop and phone. They're suggesting a connector where there isn't a difference between a "plug" and a "cable".
  - gpm 4y ago
    Strictly speaking I agree it doesn't meet the definition of the word, but it achieves the goal of "only one type of cable"* so I think it's close enough. *Someone is going to point out "extension cables" here, I'm going to ignore them.
johnwalkr 4y ago
They exist and just have cleverly designed housings that shield both pins and sockets. But it would be a bad idea for household power as it wouldn’t prevent you from doing things such as short two outlets together.
gwbas1c 4y ago
It's called USB-C
- xani_ 4y ago
  USB-C is not gender-less, it just allows to connect it when flipped
  - gwbas1c 4y ago
    It's turning into a universal power cable, and either end can send or receive power. That's genderless.
    - vel0city 4y ago
      The gender of a cable isn't the thing which determines the flow, that's only convention after. The fact a USB-C cable with a male tip can either be a source or a load isn't a statement about its gender. A genderless cable allows any cable to also double as an extension cable of the same type. I can't take a USB-C to USB-C male-to-male cable and use it as an extension with another USB-C male-to-male cable. I can't take a USB-C female device and directly connect it to a USB-C female device without getting some male-male cable. The gender of the cable matters, and without properly getting the right gender of cable and port I cannot connect things together. See the Anderson Powerpole connector.[0] It is an example of a genderless connector. Any cable can double as an extension cable. The connectors are entirely fungible, there is no concept of a male or female connector. USB-C is not genderless. That term has a specific meaning, and USB-C does not meet it. [0] https://www.andersonpower.com/us/en/resources/PowerPoleResourcesPage.html https://www.andersonpower.com/us/en/resources/PowerPoleResou...
xani_ 4y ago
Not cheaply > instead of three: (female-male, female-female, male-male). One. Male to female. From where power flows to where power is delivered. There is no reason for F-F or M-M power cables to exist. The whole point is to have power source never be male as that's exposed, energised metal.
snarfy 4y ago
You can get male/male USB-A cables. They are just as bad as the male/male power cables and should not exist either.

kevin_thibedeau 4y ago

There is the Anderson connector for DC applications. The concept could be extended with a center ground contact and retractable shields.

mrweasel 4y ago

I suppose yes. I can certainly imaging a few designs, but they would all be more expensive. Most of our electrical infrastructure is old, like really old. Modern LED light bulbs screw into a socket that over 100 years old. We run 240V to electronics that immediately transform it down to 48/24/12 or even 5V, so why even run 240V to anything beyond maybe a handful of places in an average home? It's not like you can get hurt or killed with lower voltages, but overall it would be safer.

vel0city 4y ago
> why even run 240V to anything beyond maybe a handful of places in an average home? While I might end up only wanting 48/24/12/5V for a number of things in my home, I may still want a good number of total watts in a room. Sure, most of the components on my desktop are running off 12/5/3.3V, but its spreading that out across a lot of wires. It would have to be a pretty beefy cable to send 500W at 12V to my desktop, that's ~42A of current! Compared to delivering it as 120V at the wall, where that 500W is then only 4.2A, which does not need nearly as beefy of wire. And even then, that's just the desktop. We still have another 100W of monitors, probably another 15W of lighting, my phone charger will use 20W, a ham radio that can do 200W. I'm going to need some really beefy wires to handle the same 1800W like what I currently have in each room of my house.

gpm 4y ago

USB-C? Scale up the size as needed... but if you don't have smart devices on each end you have more issues than just the plug... you don't want people plugging wall sockets into wall sockets for obvious reasons.

vel0city 4y ago
USB-C is not genderless. The cable is physically different from the port on my laptop and phone. They're suggesting a connector where there isn't a difference between a "plug" and a "cable".
- gpm 4y ago
  Strictly speaking I agree it doesn't meet the definition of the word, but it achieves the goal of "only one type of cable"* so I think it's close enough. *Someone is going to point out "extension cables" here, I'm going to ignore them.

johnwalkr 4y ago

They exist and just have cleverly designed housings that shield both pins and sockets. But it would be a bad idea for household power as it wouldn’t prevent you from doing things such as short two outlets together.

gwbas1c 4y ago

It's called USB-C

xani_ 4y ago
USB-C is not gender-less, it just allows to connect it when flipped
- gwbas1c 4y ago
  It's turning into a universal power cable, and either end can send or receive power. That's genderless.
  - vel0city 4y ago
    The gender of a cable isn't the thing which determines the flow, that's only convention after. The fact a USB-C cable with a male tip can either be a source or a load isn't a statement about its gender. A genderless cable allows any cable to also double as an extension cable of the same type. I can't take a USB-C to USB-C male-to-male cable and use it as an extension with another USB-C male-to-male cable. I can't take a USB-C female device and directly connect it to a USB-C female device without getting some male-male cable. The gender of the cable matters, and without properly getting the right gender of cable and port I cannot connect things together. See the Anderson Powerpole connector.[0] It is an example of a genderless connector. Any cable can double as an extension cable. The connectors are entirely fungible, there is no concept of a male or female connector. USB-C is not genderless. That term has a specific meaning, and USB-C does not meet it. [0] https://www.andersonpower.com/us/en/resources/PowerPoleResourcesPage.html https://www.andersonpower.com/us/en/resources/PowerPoleResou...

xani_ 4y ago

Not cheaply > instead of three: (female-male, female-female, male-male). One. Male to female. From where power flows to where power is delivered. There is no reason for F-F or M-M power cables to exist. The whole point is to have power source never be male as that's exposed, energised metal.

snarfy 4y ago

You can get male/male USB-A cables. They are just as bad as the male/male power cables and should not exist either.