Hi all,
I just bought a new refrigerator (Samsung). The electrical plug is only a 2-pin one. I live in a new apartment which has grounded 3-pin sockets everywhere (Hopefully the ground-pin is actually connected to ground and not just hanging, but that’s a story for another day!) The fridge comes with a grounding wire which you’re supposed to connect to the metal at the back.
Where can I find a 2-pin to 3-pin adapter, which has a screw for connecting a grounding wire? I can find the 3-pin to 2-pin adapters easily at Carrefour or hardware stores, but not the reverse one. Any ideas?
It needs a ground. The instruction manual says to ground it and they’ve even supplied a wire (Ridiculous in 2020, but whatever).
Yes the external ground connector is the metal case of the fridge. My point is I want to connect the wire to the ground pin in the wall socket, for the grounding to actually work.
One option is to just insert the wire in the ground-hole of the socket and hold it with tape or something. But I’d like a safer solution, which is why i need a 2-pin to 3-pin grounding adapter.
no, but go to the 4th floor make a u-turn to your right at the top of the escalators, it’s the third or fourth shop on your left.
Honestly though, you can safely plug a fridge in without grounding. The modern ones don’t use as much power as the old ones, and there is little to no surplus electricity to be grounded (don’t try this with your iron…)
In that case, you plug your fridge in, and connect the green ground wire (ones that goes to the metal case) to an external ground, assuming you an find one.
Needs a ground, really? I used to believe that. When we moved to a new house with 3 prong plugs in some rooms, at my insistence (the plugs), they turned out to be unconnected.
This was some time ago. No one had three prong plugs at the time nor any centered grounding screw in the outlet that we used to have in the US. Heck, even our pipes are plastic.
When I brought this up with family, appliance shop keepers I got the think too much response. I still think it’s important but I’m afraid I’ll break some supernatural protection spell and get the skittles rainbow effect. https://youtu.be/QUmXhCmVaQg
Just yesterday my colleagues apartment building had a fire and the cause was bad electrical wiring to the ACs in an aging complex.
All heavy appliances must have grounding. Yes in normal operation they don’t need it. But then no appliance needs grounding when everything is normal. It’s exactly when a live wire gets disconnected and touches the case or something like that is when we realize the importance of grounding.
It’s quite strange that on one hand we have great roads and MRT in Taipei, one of the tallest buildings in the world and the likes of TSMC. But on the other hand, basic safety stuff like grounding is not a priority for the government. I find it ridiculous that in 2020, a company like Samsung sells fridges with a 2-pin connector. Regulations by now should have forced home appliances to be all 3-pin. People who have 2-pin sockets either change them or get an adapter.
But, you’re on the third floor of your concrete rowhouse, your water pipes are plastic, where are you gonna find a ground to connect the outlet to? You have no yard to drive a stake into the ground.
Huh, it’s I guess you could call it the “royal you”, or “one”. I consume a lot of fiction and games written in the second person.
Anyway, I and many people who live in houses or appartments that don’t have a grounded plug or metal connected to ground anywhere near the thing we want to ground, short of calling an electrician to redo the entire wiring, what can we do other than just neatly wrap up that long green wire and take the advice of our elders and “Don’t think too much?”
OP just wanted a way to connect his fridge. My suggestion should come without saying that his place should come with grounding. It’s quite possible he lives in a newer high rise. He didn’t mention it, but if he’s this adamant about grounding, then he would have done the research when searching for a house. I know because lack of grounding is a dealbreaker for me too.
Don’t put too much responsibility on the foreigner who comes here. When I first came here, I was shocked at the lack of electrical standards here. For example, we had an open knife switch to turn on/off our hot water heater at the family home. Electrical safety and child proofing were touchy subjects.
I tried buying a lightning arrestor for our TV antenna and they didn’t know what it was, even in Chinese.
Hopefully things are more advanced in the city but in many places in Taiwan, even newer homes are not grounded.
I had a conversation with the meter man. Hey said, by law there is a ground at the meter. But, I bet it would be too expensive, to switch the wiring.
Doubtful there is proper grounding even though your outlets take three prongs, but as you imply may as well connect it up to what is there, even if it is a sloppy grounding job, it’s somewhere other than your body for the current to flow I suppose.
The other thing you can do is purchase GFCI adapters for the wall outlet off Amazon for extra protection for your major appliances. These just plug into the wall like a double adapter, and trip if anything goes wrong.