Types of Power Connectors and Plugs

Types of Power Connectors and Plugs are among the must to know things. They are part of our life – be it just a tech noob, a doctor or Arduino project developer. I do not know a single person on this Earth who has cleared the practical understanding of all kind of types of Power Connectors and Plugs, probably types of Power Connectors and Plugs is such a topic, which can never be made very clear to self. This happens due to various types of application specific types of Power Connectors and Plugs (like in computing, medical instruments etc.) plus pathetic vendor Lock-in. Most importantly, the Power Plug of main supply itself varies around the glob. This article brings the commonly used Types of Power Connectors and Plugs to be known.

Types of Power Connectors and Plugs and Other Relevant Articles

Connectors itself has an abusive terminology – male and female plugs. We wrote how this Gender of Connectors was assigned, which is getting blurred with time. Audio and Video Interfaces and Connectors are special types of connectors, so as USB connectors. There is a clear overlapping of some of these connectors, some of them actually became within the topic – Types of Power Connectors and Plugs.

Types of Power Connectors and Plugs

AC power plugs and sockets are the normally used thing to connect any thing – starting from home appliance to a server; with the supply mains. This thing should be the same around the glob, but people who enforces the standards, probably want to buy us a conversion plug to change one from another or to lately introduced (because of wide usage of computing devices) universal travel kit which can adapt (or engulf!) any kind of plug in the socket. British and compatible standards usually has two solid rod like thing for the plugs which has no Earth as the third pole :

Within the European Countries, there are too much variation, that will be apparent from Apple MacBook Pro’s Mag Safe extra stuffs sold outside :

Apple get confused what to send to India, they assumes it should be the British Standard, unfortunately, that is not. We probably use Thai Industrial Standard (TIS) that has three rods on the plug. I am not sure because I and probably all find an ‘loose’ feel with plugs, because of various running standards.

North Americans are smart, they do not like some insect will make the socket’s hole their living place, if not maintained, they uses these :

Third is also a bar. The major good point is (apart from insect thing inside the socket), a child can not put his/her finger if the switch is on. Chinese uses a kind of same thing, but has some angle in placement.
These are types of Power Connectors and Plugs used for AC. Do not forget, there is difference in supply voltage. For DC supply, which is mostly used for inside instruments of computing devices and medical devices, most common is Molex :

For the chargers and others, usually Coaxial power connectors and now Micro USB connectors are used. Because DC connectors are related to electronics, they has a common standard, that runs across the globe. But there are proprietary connectors.
Binding Posts are usually used for the cars :

Anderson Powerpole :

And Blade connectors and Ring End Connectors (image below) are used in various things :

There are few thousand types of Power Connectors and Plugs, these are commonly used.