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Old 4th Jul 2019, 9:50 am   #66
Lucien Nunes
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Join Date: Apr 2008
Location: London, UK.
Posts: 2,508
Default Re: 13 amp fuse for 1.5mm mains flex?

That is an Italian 10A plug, made to the standard CEI 23-50 S10, derived from the old 'lighting' plug. The 3-pin version (S11) has the earth pin located centrally between those two; it is not polarised. It has insulated pins because the face of the socket is flat like BS1363, not recessed like Schuko, but they are not inclined as on a Europlug because it is not intended to be mated with anything other than the correct Italian socket.

Italy was unusual in having 10A and 16A plug variants that were deliberately incompatible, using wider pin spacing on the 16A, dating from the days of separate lighting and power tarriffs. It was the 10A that shared the European universally compatible 4mm pins on 19mm centres, hence the 2-pin 10A makes a kind of substitute rewirable Europlug as you say. However, since normal Schuko sockets are only fully rated when used with plugs having 4.8mm pins, the 10A rating is only applicable when mated with Italian sockets that are designed specifically for 4mm pins. Modern Italian sockets often have multiple contact entries for both 10A, 16A and/or Schuko.
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