They tell everything except WHY it's called a California plug! Hubbell doesn't even ever use the term, but Pass & Seymore/Legrand and Leviton do.Those diagrams and product [-]broschers[/-] brochures tell a lot.
The spike is definitely the ground. I am not sure if there is some sort of mechanism to disconnect the power if the ground isn't in contact; I had never heard of this but it seems believable.
... These are often called "rack pack" distros because they are seen quite often in amp racks. ...
Well my previously deleted post is back so I guess I can actually post this time. There's a great mechanism in the three phase connector, it's called the ground spike is the only return leg, if it's not connected there is no circuit. In single phase you're depending on how it's wired.
As far as why the spike is on the female connector, I would guess it's for the same reason that touring shows turn around ground and neutral in feeder. On the ground leg power is actually flowing from the load back towards the power source so the end that sticks out out of the conductor should be on the return side not the load side.
Power isn't flowing persay because if part of the circuit is energized than the whole circuit is energized. While flipping the genders around to prevent accidental contact is a good idea, lets think about the situation. The reason that this ground exists is so that if something shorts and energizes a piece of metal equipment you won't get shocked because there is a path of less resistance to the ground. However this means that all metal panels are connected to ground. So then whats the difference between touching a power distro and touching the end of the connector?
NEC 2011
Article 250.2 Definitions
Effective Ground-Fault Current Path
An intentionally constructed, low-impedance electrically conductive path designed and intended to carry current under ground-fault conditions from the point of a ground fault on a wiring system to the electrical supply source and that facilitates the operation of the overcurrent protective device or ground-fault detectors on high-impedance grounded systems.
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