The danger isnt fire. Dont use this receptacle when no ground wire is.
2 Pole 3 Wire Grounding Diagram Wiring Diagram Schemes
Grounded plug wiring diagram. The long slot on the left is the neutral contact and the short slot is the hot contact. A ul knot secures the cord. Three prong plugs have a hot wire a neutral wire and a ground wire. The worry is that a miswired plug poses a fairly serious shock hazard. In 110v plug wiring youre dealing with 14 or 12 gauge wire. The hot wire goes on the brass terminal screw the white wire goes on the chrome one and the ground wire goes on the green one.
Wire a plug to maintain correct polarity. If youre wiring a 3 prong plug you need 2 conductor cable with a ground. Wiring a new plug isnt difficult but its important to get the hot and neutral wires connected to the proper prongs. Wiring a grounded duplex receptacle outlet. The key is to make sure you connect the wires to the proper terminals in the plug. To see if a cord is working properly plug it into a three prong receptacle.
The testers lights will indicate whether the wires are hooked up correctly and the cord is grounded. A grounded contact at the bottom center is crescent shaped. This is a standard 15 amp 120 volt wall receptacle outlet wiring diagram. The better solution is to plug three prong plugs only in into three slot receptacles that are grounded. When replacing a three prong plug connect the black wire in the cord to the brass terminal screw the white wire to the chrome terminal and the green or bare wire which is the ground wire to the green ground screw in the plug. Where a grounded outlet is not possible as in older wiring some protection is offered by installing a gfci ground fault circuit interrupter receptacle at that location.
Reassemble the replacement plug and tighten the screws holding it to the cord. This is a polarized device. Then fit a plug in circuit tester onto the cords other end.