I am considering buying the FW charger, but I am worried about the compatibility of the plug…
As people mentioned, ground pin isn’t required in countries like Japan/ Taiwan, so that possibly makes FW charger incompatible there…
I see that on FW Taiwan site, for instance, they sell Taiwan Power Adapter, as well as other countries’. But on US site, I can only choose “US/Canada”… I think if I could buy the Taiwan Power Adapter… problem solved…
Does anyone has any idea how I can order the Taiwan Power Adapter… I reside in the US.
Or anywhere online can I order the AC cable like I showed as 3rd picture??
That would be a dangerous combination as that mickey-mouse-like plug has a grounding pin, which would be left unconnected, so it would kinda defeat the purpose.
This blog post says that Framework is using a IEC C5 Type B cable for Taiwan, which matches your second picture.
The ground pin (3rd wire) is there for safety reasons.
Without a ground pin it is possible for electric charge to build up where it’s not supposed to, which under normal operations means that if you touch the laptop while charging you’ll likely encounter an electric tingly feeling and in the event of a catastrophic failure it is more likely to kill the laptop and create a safety hazard for the next person to touch it if there isn’t a ground pin.
Charging adapters designed to operate without a ground pin can often be designed to reduce (not completely solve, but reduce) those issues, however the Framework power adapter is designed to have a ground pin.
Adapters like you showed bypass the ground pin, allowing users to use devices (like the Framework charger) that are designed be grounded without a ground wire.
If you need to use a power adapter that can plug into ungrounded outlets I strongly recommend buying a power adapter that is designed to work safely without ground.
The three prong plug has a lead that grounds whatever is connected to it. The two prong plug is ungrounded. The kind of cable you’re looking for exists but not widely because they allow you to plug in something that should be grounded without grounding it.
Such a cable would indeed be a potential footgun in that it allows you to leave ungrounded something that’s meant to be grounded.
(I don’t know how important that is in this particular case, however, given a lot of other power supplies you could be using for the Framework are ungrounded wall warts. I wonder if the whole thing is done for some obscure regulatory reason rather than for actual safety, because e.g. the bulky EU cable that comes with the Framework charger is stupidly heavy compared to the charger itself. But! I’m neither an electrician nor an electrical engineer, my credentials barely even mention electronics.)
That said, the mechanical specs for the ungrounded C7 plug are almost the same as for the corresponding part of the grounded C5 plug, except the C5 has a somewhat larger indent in the middle. So you could take an ungrounded cable and shave away a bit of plastic until it fits into the charger.
Again, it’s probably best to figure out why the grounding is there in the first place before doing this, because it seems weird and I don’t understand it, yet it is potentially safety-critical.
Are you sure the Framework Taiwan power adapter has no ground pin? They don’t have a picture. And I read that Taiwan does use the ground pin, though I’m guessing not everywhere.
Also, does Framework block you if you set your region to Taiwan in order to get the TW adapter into your cart, then just use a US address?
I used something like this with my original framework US power adapter cable in Japan.
The 3 holes plug type can be found in a lot of places around Japan, but you can sometimes stumble upon a 2 hole one. Some of the latter can still take in the FW’s power plug, but it will depend on their shape. For this reason, getting an adapter like the one above should work with either of the plug type you have shown in your original post.
I remember using those adapters in the house I grew up in.
Only two prongs in a house built in Florida in 1959.
The green wire was intended to be attached to the central screw holding the wall plate cover on. The expectation was that the socket was grounded in the wall.
Doubtful, that is sure. We replaced sockets in that house, and the built in wiring only had two strands, black and white, no ground wire.
