On Tuesday, October 04, 2011 04:15:19 AM Peter Blodow did opine: > I hoped Jim Coleman would be the one looking like an idiot.... but > couldn't someone explain to a poor non-US citizen what kind of animals > RCD and GFCI are? Is there an abbreviation of Aggressive Acronyme > Addiction, maybe AAA? > Peter > I am not familiar with RCD (I live on the American side of the pond), but a GFCI is a Ground Fault Circuit Interrupter, a device that compares the current in one wire to the current in the return wire, and will typically "trip", interrupting power to the protected load if the difference exceeds 5 to 20 microamps, indicating that a circuit path to ground exists, which could be a human body.
20 microamps you generally cannot feel, but that is the lower bound of the range that, in passing through the heart, can be lethal by causing loss of beat timing. It may go into fibrillation where the beats are very rapid and move very little blood, and generally requires a 200+ watt second bang from a defibrilator's paddles applied across the upper chest to get it out of this condition. The upper bound of this lethal region is generally considered to be about 20 milliamps because at 20 milliamps and above, the heart is frozen, and if the current is removed within 1 or 2 minutes, the heart will usually just start back up in a normal beat pattern. Normally these devices need the static ground, but I just recently purchased a 1500 psi electric pressure washer whose GFCI circuit on the end of its rather long power cord does not have this 3rd, round pin, relying on the wide blade being the neutral for our unbalanced 127 volts to neutral power that we get from a wall socket here in the states. Obviously this one has warnings about using it on a drop cord that may be miss-wired. But I verify mine before I put them into service. And it did trip once, got left out in the rain. :( > andy pugh schrieb: > > On 3 October 2011 22:35, Jim Coleman <drunkenwhip...@gmail.com> wrote: > >> At the risk of sounding like an idiot... what's an RCD? I'm guessing > >> it's along the liens of GFCI, but don't recall ever seeing the term. > > > > The same thing, I think. > > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Residual-current_device > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------ > ------ All the data continuously generated in your IT infrastructure > contains a definitive record of customers, application performance, > security threats, fraudulent activity and more. Splunk takes this data > and makes sense of it. Business sense. IT sense. Common sense. > http://p.sf.net/sfu/splunk-d2dcopy1 > _______________________________________________ > Emc-users mailing list > Emc-users@lists.sourceforge.net > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-users Cheers, Gene -- "There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order." -Ed Howdershelt (Author) Plastic... Aluminum... These are the inheritors of the Universe! Flesh and Blood have had their day... and that day is past! -- Green Lantern Comics ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ All the data continuously generated in your IT infrastructure contains a definitive record of customers, application performance, security threats, fraudulent activity and more. Splunk takes this data and makes sense of it. Business sense. IT sense. Common sense. http://p.sf.net/sfu/splunk-d2dcopy1 _______________________________________________ Emc-users mailing list Emc-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-users
