I remember as I kid, I had these in my room, I clicked them all and thought I broke them. I basically had no power in my room for months because I was too scared to tell my dad.
@Husk You are entitled to your opinion; however, I disagree with your opinion and find it quite funny. I don't know why exactly, maybe it's because it is akin to dad jokes (of which I find the majority hilarious for some damn reason, and I'm not a father). Or maybe it's because of it being dry humor like Tim-J.Swan said.
@Husk I'm pretty sure I used the semi-colon correctly. I did not start the sentence with 'however' but I did use it in its correct usage. Example: The results remained consistent; however, the data were analyzed.
I have finally learned to watch your vids. When I saw the title, I thought "I know what GFCIs are," keep scrolling, then I thought "He spends 15 mins explaining, may be interesting." Everything you explain that I already know, I know much more clearly after I learn how much I didn't know. Thank you, sir!
I didn't learn more about humidifiers by watching his humidifier videos, except for the one about the personal air conditioner that is not an air conditioner. But I still feel it's educational, because it feels to me that Alec is incredibly good at communicating. This is something I've struggled with my whole life. I'm getting better, but I'm not to Alec's level. It's also fun to watch someone who is so clearly excited about topics as he is. My colorblind brother spilled the beans about brown before Alec was born. I'm not sure how old he is exactly, but he looks like a teenager in his 2013 videos. My brother struggled and failed to make bright brown back in the 1980s. Brown is one of the colors my brother sees well enough (so long as he's not trying to distinguish it from green), but he got my opinion on it because I can see color, I just got my fashion sense from my colorblind brothers. All of that said, I've watched a lot of his other videos as well, and, yeah, everything else, I went in thinking "I know this topic" and came away knowing more about it.
I married an electical engineer. Usually I would just smile and nod when she would wax poetic about eletrical stuff. However, because of this channel I have the ability to carry a conversation with her about her job now.
@@nikkiofthevalley Your talking about the outlet itself right? Just press the "test" button that is directly on the outlet itself and if the green light goes out and comes back on after a reset then its good. If it gives you a red light then it is likely faulty.
Any GFCI-protected electrical outlet in your home is a good test point for whatever older, perhaps vintage, electrical or electronic devices you might have decided to plug in after they sat around for years unused or that you had picked up at a flea market or whatever. Tube/valve type guitar amplifiers and hifi amplifiers are a particular case in point; these often have the audio ground and chassis coupled to one leg of the power cord *through a capacitor* , for the purpose of using the neutral wire as a pseudo "earth ground" to the chassis, in order to reduce audible hum and buzz. If the amplifier hummed, you would simply flip the non-polarized power plug around the other way and hopefully lessen the noise; or if the device already had a 3 wire grounded cord, there might be a switch on the back to select the ground polarity and you would set it to whichever position reduced the noise. The problem is, 60 or 70 years later those capacitors often leak voltage and so you might find some AC leakage current on the chassis of the amplifier, and also on the guitar strings and metal hardware of the guitar. However, plugging such a device with a leaky "death cap", as they are often referred to, into a GFCI outlet will immediately trip the built-in breaker and alert you of a dangerous situation.. As I have noted, vintage guitar amplifiers pose a special problem and should *always* be converted/ upgraded to a grounded 3 wire polarized cord and plug, with the death cap removed.
Inspired by this, I tested the socket in my bathroom. When I hit reset, my lights came back on for a moment, then turned back off. Guess my socket needs to be replaced, haha! Thanks for potentially saving my life I guess.
@@far2ez539 This was after testing it. Something had failed in the switch when I tested it, and any time I subsequently hit reset it would momentarily turn on then trip again. Ended up having to replace the plug which fixed the issue.
When I was a kid, I thought that those plugs were waterproof and even shot it with a water pistol for fun... I'm lucky that nothing ever happened to me but please parents, if your child ask why there's buttons on that plug, give a better explanation than just "it protects from water" or something like that...
Mister Brookes And one of the largest grounded exposed metal objects in a typical home is the actual kitchen sink! Standard example in EE class was always someone touching a faulty kitchen appliance and the kitchen sink at the same time.
Science has changed the natural course of mankind. For example had science not created safety barriers to keep you around, you'd be gone and this boring tweet begging for thumbs ups would have never been around. It's sad.
Technology Connections: "What i'm about to do is incredibly dangerous please don't do this" Electroboom: "I might die and my body would be slowly cooking to perfection... I could post it to LiveLeak"
@@soaringvulture I like that whenever Alec says "this is incredibly dangerous, don't do this at home", what he shows is actually a safe way to do the thing. At least, so far, in all of his videos that I've seen. Disclaimer: I'm still catching up, so there could be a gem that I haven't seen. But so far, it's always been a safe investigation of something that is legitimately dangerous to investigate in a more direct manner than the route Alec takes.
Whenever I'm explaining safety things to coworkers there's some solutions that make things less dangerous, and other solutions that completely negate danger, and people like to just use the less dangerous one because it was quicker, and I'm trying to convince them to use the one with no danger
@@sewd1289 Except you're doing that constantly. sure, they're trillions of sides, but every step you take *could* be just wrong to cause you to fall and hit your head just wrong to kill you.
I appreciate the hell out of this channel. The intentionally cheesy 1980/90's public access theme, the desk-umentary feel, and your blazers. At first I thought this was all an elaborate joke, like Infinite Solutions. I was very wrong. Appreciate all the research, and the amount of effort you must put in to make engineers seem interesting. Oh, and thanks for not having sponsors. In a world of non-stop advertising, I seriously appreciate your dedication to storytelling without a sales pitch. You're also very funny. Keep it up.
I mean, the only reason he's able to do this without sponsorships is because of Patreon, which is essentially just him being sponsored by his audience. It's not that different, fundamentally. I feel like demonizing taking sponsorships is counter-productive, especially considering that that's always been how educational content has been made. PBS is (or at least was) often supported by brands that then got a shout out between programs. Most other educational content in the past was supported by massive companies that could afford the cost. Not every creator feels comfortable taking money directly from their audience for what they do (which I don't really get, but it's their choice). There's nothing wrong with accepting sponsorships to support your private endeavor, especially if you only accept ones that you actually believe in.
Ryszmarine That’s how german language works. We just add stuff together. For example a Lighter is a “Fire Thing”. Doesn’t matter how many words there are as long as it describes the functionality.
Nice. For those who do not know, they make GFCI with Audible alarms, so if you have a fridge or something connected to one, it could save you a lot of money if it trips.
As a 25 year electrician, I have actually seen regular breakers NOT trip on a dead short. GFI can be a pain sometimes, but also save lives and property.
As a person who lives in America and has been overloading cheap extension cords my whole life. Most things dont use that much power. Basically the things that make things hot are all u have to worry about. The rest u can bunch up on a $5 extension cord and it wont even get warm.
At one point, we replaced an outlet, and to cut power to the one in question, we hit one of the GFCIs to cut the power. But when we reset it, we actually had to reset the breaker for that circuit to get the thing going again. Does anyone have an idea as to what might be the problem, if there is one?
Also, if the outlet with the GFCI we used were being protected by an AFCI, it would go off rather frequently, as I get an arc even from my computer charger. Probably should replace that outlet too
This channel is so rich in quality content. It’s all the electrical and technology questions that are hard to ask. It’s all the stuff you don’t even know you don’t even know
I'm an electrician (but definitely not an electrical engineer) and I never thought about the minutiae that goes into the GFI outlets so it was actually great to see.
In Dutch language we call it an aardlek schakelaar, which translates to: Earthleak switch. I think this covers it well! And indeed, in The Netherlands it is placed in the switch box to protect a part of the house, or in my case the whole house.
In Finland they are called vikavirtasuoja (fault current protector). IMO this is clear. Terms that refer to earth and ground confuse many as they think it is related to the ground wire.
Yet again you've covered something cool we use in construction frequently. If you've ever watched someone drop a live powertool in to a flooded lift shaft without one like I have, you'll know why. Really cool you reinforced the fact that testing them really is testing them for real and that mechanical faults are just as good a reason to test as electrical!
I actually shocked myself with an electric outlet one time trying to plugin my computer in the dark. I was feeling for the outlet and accidentally got the plug half in, half out with my finger touching the metal. Fortunately, I was saved by a built-in safety measure: electricity going to the muscles of my arm caused them to seize and jerk my hand away from the outlet. It felt like something had vibrated the bones in that hand. Good thing I wasn't in a bathtub at the time!
@@pluto8404 it was a hypothetical scenario. One could imagine trying to plug _something_ in while being unable to see the plug and being near water at the time.
Jesus, your plugs let you do that? There's all kinds of regulation about how much of the live pins has to be sheathed on plugs here to prevent exactly that kind of thing. o.o
I once played an electric guitar plugged into my amplifier while on a wet concrete walkway around a swimming pool. Need I go on? Ok, I will lol. My shoes got wet from walking around the pool. I touched my guitar's pickup and the metal part of my amp's handle at the same time. Even today, 40 years later, I can still feel the insanely horrible BUZZZZZ! through my whole body, and believe it or not, I could FEEL that the current was alternating really really fast (60 times a second, actually). It only takes one shock like that to make me pray to the god of electrons to never feel that again! I can - almost - laugh about it now, but musicians and vocalists have been killed, some recently, by touching an ungrounded microphone.
I can relate to that. The best way to describe a shock on 120V AC is that you feel it vibrating. I took a shock on 1600V AC and that just plain hurt. My hand felt numb for a few hours afterwards (it only went from my middle finger to about my wrist)
Reminds me of when I was like 5 years old and wanted to test the new oven's lamp, I couldn't get enough extension chords to the outlet I could reach so I used a transformer mid way there. Step up 127v to 220v and that was my 1st electrical shock
Hi yes why on earth was mains voltage running through your guitar. This makes no sense to me as to how you would get a shock here. Handle on the amp shouldn't be connected to any sort of ground. Should be completely isolated. Your pickups should have less than a volt going through them at any time, they dont actually receive any voltage from the amp. No idea how you managed this.
@@ccleake1 You see, there's a lot of "should" and "shouldn't" happening here. In normal situations, yes. When shit goes bad, no so much. The strings are grounded on a guitar, if this ground gets electrified with mains voltage at the amp, you get a mains shock on your fingers. You never know the absurdity of some electrical designs out there after all.
Somebody once tipped off this is a kind of ripoff, It should handle twenty amps great. But the only thing preventin' a twenty-amp connection, Is the shape of the holes on the faceplate. Well my hand starts aching but it's stopped by this breaking, If it weren't for this thing I might've hit the ground shaking! Didn't make sense not to install one, Not just to meet code, but for protection. So that's what we do, it's smart you see, No-one wants to play things that risky. A shock does more than leave marks. The last thing you see could be sparks! Hey now, you should use these, they're called G-F-C-Is. Hey now, they're important, don't get paralyzed. Loose current isn't your friend, You don't want to meet an untimely end.
In Germany (and in large parts of Europe) RCDs have been absolute standard for ALL sockets and lamps for very many years (and for the bathroom for many decades). For this reason, they are almost always permanently installed in the fuse box or electrical distribution of the house. They normally cost about 40 bucks.
I know i am late, but this guy that makes these videos (and as good as they are) has such an elitist aura when it comes to electronics, he really dislikes it when Euros educate him on the superior network LOL
In Germany, this safety measure is called "Fehlerschutzschalter" (fault protection switch) or "FI" in short and is required to be build into every flats or houses main power supply
Funny how many languages each seem to have a slightly different common term to describe these devices. Here in the Netherlands they are normally refered to as 'aardlekschakelaar' which literaly translates to 'earth leak switch'.
@@RC534 Yes this is funny ! In france it is call "interrupteur différentiel" or in short "différentiel" (differential switch) : because it check for a... difference in the current. Everyone named it differently !
@@tom-sn4gd actually similar to russian, it's called "differencial'nyj apparat" or "difapparat" for short here, literally means "differential machine"
WELL, THE YEARS START COMING AND THEY DONT STOP COMING FED TO THE RULES AND I HIT THE GROUND RUNNING DIDNT MAKE SENSE NOT TO LIVE FOR FUN YOUR BRAIN GETS SMART BUT YOUR HEAD GETS DUMB
In Europe, all safety devices are usually centralised, and it has been years since these elements were allowed to be placed outside the control panel. Normally we call it a differential, and we have them calibrated to 30 mA. (30 mA (for full circuit, not for one plug) and 230 AC volts, of course.) As for the circuit-breakers, they are the same but in a panel, they also protect against overcurrent and short circuits.
15 mA or 30 mA. If you exceed 30 mA in losses you need to split the circuit. (In Spain and in houses, not industrial this is another thing). More than 30 mA will kill you... this is the reason that forces you to split the circuits in 30 mA max possible losses. In any situation will stop you to death ;) Maybe in Belgium is different don't know...
In Belgium it's 30mA for moist locations (like bathroom), 300mA for dry locations and if you go extremely wet (submerged) it should even be 10mA. In dry conditions you should be able to survive a very short jolt of 230V/300mA but under the right conditions even a 230V/30mA jolt can kill you
In Denmark 30mA RCDs are required on all circuits up to 20A (those above are used for distribution). It has been a requirement for new houses since 1975, and in 2008 it became a requirement for all installations. Even those that where legal when they where made. Non-private buildings are required to hire licensed electricians to test the RDCs every year, who uses equipment that measure that the RCD triggers fast enough.
As a kid, a show like yours would be on my must watch list, every week. As an adult, there is no difference. Please keep making this amazing content and we love your work. Also, put speakers in more stuff.
in the UK, the first time I saw these, they weren't aimed at household socket protection at all. They were basically marketed as inline plug devices for use with garden equipment (lawnmowers, strimmers, hedge trimmers, etc) as ways to protect you from shock if you accidentally cut the power cable. We didn't get them build into household sockets until much later.
NO WAY! Wow. Just wow. I'm an electrician so I know my way around Dutch electrical wiring and know a bit about US-wiring and electrics, so I didn't thought I'd see something new in this video.But I NEVER knew there were RCD's built into wall-sockets. And just when I thought that was all, you started talking about appliances with RCD's mounted INSIDE the plug! To talk about these devices: In the Netherlands we tend to call them 'Aardlekschakelaars', literally translated you end up with something like 'Earth-leakage switch'.Though it indicates it does 'something' with a leak somewhere, it's hard for many people to understand that the safety-ground wire (which we just call earth or PE in electricians-language) has nothing to do with the RCD itself: it only senses that there is current leaking somewhere, but as it's not returning to neutral, we assume it's leaking to earth. And about the place where these devices sit: it's common in the Netherlands to have these in the service-cabinet (metercabinet as we like to call it).Indeed, it can be hard to find the cause of the leak, but that's also some common sense: just unplug everything on the same group (for as far as possible) and start replugging until the RCD trips and there's your fault. Garden-lighting is notorious though for moisture and causing random tripping of the RCD and because you have to open the switchboxes in the metercabinet, most people don't think about that possibility. We got our metercabinet renewed last year. We got PKN6 RCD's from Eaton. Big downside from these is that they don't indicate the kind of fault, whereas the devices from ABB I use on a daily basis at work, the DS201 series, feature an extra indicator so you know the type of fault that occured.An overcurrent just trips the device, throws the lever down ánd moves a green 'signal' in a small window just above the lever.Resetting it makes the green signal turn red again.A ground fault however, does all of the above, but also shoots out a blue indicator in the middle of the handle, indicating the device has tripped because of a ground fault. In Belgium, the usual name is 'Verliesstroomschakelaar' (literally translated: 'Current-loss switch).
Definitely been very happy with ABB products wherever I've used them, but being as Square D and Eaton seem to be preferred in Canada, ABB tends to be far more expensive here. For industrial products ABB prices are fairly on par depending on suppliers.
A good rule of thumb for figuring out which device set of the switch is to unplug the last thing you touched, re-enable the switch and try again. Also in Flanders, the metercabinet is often called the "plombkas", literally the "kast" ('cabinet', the t isn't articulated nor spelled) where you put the "plombs" ('fuses', the b is also not articulated but appears in writing), which I presume comes from the French word for lead, i.e. what the old style fuses that melt were made of.
1:35 also because plumbing is grounded so in addition to your wet hands having an easier connection to live, your body is more likely to have a decent path to ground
Excellent presentation. I'm an electrician and I knew the gfci detected a current inbalance, but I didn't know how this was achieved. And I didn't know such a tiny current inbalance would trip it. I knew they were fast. But you quantified it for me.
My house, and many houses in Michigan since the 80s, have GFIs in the circuit panels centralized for all electrical outlets (indoors and outdoors outlets in my case). And indeed you do spend allot of time running back and forth to the panel for trouble shooting.
Well which one should I pee on? That chord or that chord or in my chords? I'm sorry, it's 3:30 am 11 months later. This is an awesome and most important channel. This is why UA-cam was invented.
As an electrical engineer and musician, if you only knew the dangers... Your electric guitar's safely grounded, you'd think. Untill your lips touch the phantom powered mic, burning and blistering your lips. Yup, that was a "safe" voltage and current, but boy does it hurt. How to prevent? Don't ground your amp. Also, imagine: outdoor gig, rainy, foggy or damp weather. Got a wall of marshall/vox/*insert favorite flavour*. How safe do you think it is? Well, of course it has a transformer, so high voltage is separated from line. But not the energy. And where does every ground fault go? You didn't ground your amp to not be shocked by the mic. So every fault goes through anything else grounded. Via your guitar strings, through you to the ground you are standing on. And this was just one example...
When I moved to USA this was the first thing it called my attention. And I was so frustrated everytime that I plugged the hair dryer and it was "not working" because the outlet was on test. But now that I understand what they are, I will never get annoyed about it. Thanks for such a good video!!!! 🙏🏼
In Italy we call those devices (which are normally fitted inside the distribution panel) “salvavita”, literally lifesaver, and I always loved that name, because it speaks for itself and you don’t need to know what residual current or a ground fault is, you know it’s to save your life (also we have 230v which is much more dangerous)
Actually we call them 'interruttori differenziali' (differential switches). Salvavita is a BTicino trademark. But I agree that the name has been selected well.
Davide Bacchi technical term whatever, but everybody calls them that, the only problem is that most people tend to call also the MCBs, with only overcurrent protection “salvavita” which is wrong and might lead to confusion Also, fun fact, they call them salvavita too in Malta
Excellent video. One thing I'll add (well...recommend)...particularly in Kitchens for the counter receptacles. Don't string them (don't use one and then wire additional receptacles, as they are designed). The 5mA current protection is total and if you are cooking some masterpiece that has the mixer, toaster, blender...and whatnot all going...these devices are often "reactive" loads that will have an influence on the current and timing that can cause a false-trip. Spend the extra money and let EACH receptacle be its own GFCI and you will never get false-trips again but be every bit as protected. In the USA you can (and in some cases) do get breakers with GFCI (and pretty much all circuits are now AFCI...different subject). Depending on what is being protected and where your breaker panel is, it would be a big annoyance to have to trundle down in the the basement/garage or wherever your panel is just to reset the breaker for this sort of trip. This also comes back to the more stuff you have plugged into the circuit and the longer the cable run is, the greater the likelihood of a false trip becomes (that long wire run to the receptacles actually consumes some electricity to heat up the wire too and you don't want that counting against you on your 5mA. Lastly, it was quite informative that internally the receptacle you showed has 20A contacts though a difference in the two models you didn't present is that a "TR" is going to also be Tamper Resistant (has the little doors to prevent kids from sticking things in). So you might get a price difference there though yes, 20A receptacles do tend to be notably pricier than their 15A counterparts.
You might be pleased to know that this video is now assigned watching for students in the Applied Electricity course at Lansing Community College. I was already a fan of yours so it was a pleasant surprise to see you in my school work!
You can buy GFCI circuit breakers in the United States, they just aren't as common. They are easily found at Home Depot or Lowes and they even make ones that have a dual function of AFCI and GFCI. AFCI is also available in GFCI style receptacles too with some also being dual function with GFCI. AFCI is now required on almost every circuit in the house (in states that have adopted the latest electrical code) including ones that have previously required or have not required GFCI protection. You should do a video about how AFCI is different from GFCI now.
Yeah AFCI needs some work on defining what exactly is the trip threshold, right now there's too many harmless things that can trip them, "safer" or not. It's not safer if it generates so many false positives that you can't tell if it was a real fault or just another nuisance trip event.
44R0Ndin. AFCI circuit breakeres have gotten better at detecting actual arcs instead of electronic noise. If you are having a problem with your electronics nuisance tripping your circuit breaker, it could be one from the early 2000's and would easilly be solved by replacing the arc fault breaker with a more modern one.
They also make combo GFCI *and* AFCI circuit breakers now. Also, while GFCI receptacles often trip at 5mA, the circuit breakers won't trip until around 30mA.
@3:14 in Romania we call it differential safety/breaker, it's the kind that protects the entire house. But if you are smart/you have enough money, you will put a precise one per room. I was amazed to find out, in another video of yours or electriboom, that american style GFCI is much more precise than our usual RCBO.
Thanks to videos like this and others on this channel, I've been getting much more interested in learning about electricity in America. I've been watching avidly for years and I'm now pursuing an electrician certification in my state.
Excellent video, and I’m glad you touched on the differences between this and a breaker - I made the mistaken assumption that they were the same kind of thing, except that the GFCIs might be faster in their response. I’m glad to learn the truth though. I’ll also be sure to test these more regularly now that I’m more familiar with them. Good public service announcement!
That's something that confused me about this video, in Australia/Europe/elsewhere, the GFCI/RCDs are integrated with circuit breakers so they have additional protections. E.g. if there is a large amount of current being drawn when it trips, our breakers can handle that but I don't know how the American GFCI's are supposed to handle the flash over.
+Nick Stallman If I were to hazard a guess I would assume that the US outlets are designed under the assumption that they are protected by a 20A breaker and thus built with enough heat dissipation capacity to cope with the overcurrent for as long as it would take the breaker to respond. For the most part the breaker will be faster the higher the current so it's relatively consistent the amount of energy it would need to handle. I say relatively as of course extreme edge cases will destroy that such as suddenly being exposed to multiple megavolts such as in a lightning strike chances are that would indeed fry the GFCI and most of the electrical equipment attached to the circuit.
In the US any circuit that has a GFCI receptacle will ALSO be fed from a circuit breaker, either 15A or 20A and so the circuit will have short circuit and overload protection as well. He didn't mention it, but there are GFI breakers in the US as well. These devices combine short circuit, overload and GFI protection in a single unit and protect entire circuits...identical to RCBOs in Europe. It's just less common to use GFI breakers rather than receptacles.
You my friend are skilled in the art of explaining things in a very concise and easy to understand manner. I appreciate what you do. Keep doing it. Love being informed and educated. Knowledge is the enemy of ignorance.
I love your content, it's so easy to digest and informative. At first I was like, "how can someone take 20 minutes explains why the high setting on fans are first" but after watching you videos, it makes so much more sense lol
These things are just centralized in European homes and active on all the wiring. It makes them a bit more of a pain to reset if a fault occurs, but safer overall imo, because you don't have unprotected outlets, lamps or whatever else in your home. And since they do have to be checked on every so often to see if they still cut the power quickly enough, a single one in a centralized location is much easier to keep track of than potentially a dozen or so throughout the house, and cheaper to replace if it does fail. Edit: I see now you brought this up in the video, and you bring up some valid points why having these things decentralized can be advantageous, the ideal solution would probably be somewhere in the middle, like having one for each room and etc., but all accessible from a central service panel. Just my two cents on the matter.
This explains why The GFCI was tripping after replacing an old receptacle, they were daisy chained only using hot with all of the neutrals returning to a junction installing a GFCI made it so the daisy chained outlets would instantly trip as they did not return through the outlet. Because of this video I didn't need an electrician and learn quite a bit about safety thank you
My other half doesn't quite share my love for educational content on this platform, but she sure liked your content. Both the personality, humor and presentation. I love this channel myself, just thought I'd share. Good work bud, as always!
I just started watching your videos. Love your sense of humor and I feel like a genius after watching them. Grasping concepts like these is not easy for me but the way you break it down really helps keep it interesting and practical 👍
In Canada, we do something a little different with the duplex receptacles. Yeah, we leave the tabs on and use them the same way as a normal American installation. But in some places like kitchens it was commonplace to break the tang on the hot side and use 14/3 cable, White to neutral, Black to one outlet's hot, Red to the other outlet's hot. Supply it with a ganged breaker from the panel, and then you have two 15A circuits in the same outlet - it worked great when you wanted to plug a kettle and a 4-slice toaster into the same kitchen outlet. You could always tell these outlets because if you went from narrow slot to narrow slot with a voltmeter, you'd see 240V AC... With GFCI requirements, that has gone away, and been replaced mostly with 20A T-slot GFCI outlets on 12/2 wire. AFAIK, running the 14/3 and the ganged 15A breakers is still okay, but only in places where a GFCI would not be required. The outlet behind my fridge is, for example, wired this way. Which is great because my microwave oven sits atop my fridge, but it does mean that a nuisance trip caused by my microwave would kill the power to the fridge. I do, however, have a total of 30A at 120V available between the halves of that outlet. Always follow building code in your region and always get it inspected. The inspector is your friend... even if he can be a pain in the ass at times.
If the outlets are still 120V each, I can see this working great where vacuum cleaners are used a lot. If they're 240V, then they would possibly be better for modern computer PSUs, as the power factor is more consistently better, TMK. I can imagine data centers using 240V receptacles.
"putting the protection at the outlet makes the device causing the problem rather obvious" not necessarily. I once had a house where half of the guest room was wired to the "load" terminals of the bathroom gcfi. Fixed it myself when I figured it out, but finding that was rather unexpected.
WOW. This was amazing. You truly have a gift of sharing information in a way that is easy to understand by those who aren't familiar with the topic. So cool, and God Bless.
Why are these videos so satisfying to watch? I am annoyed by the houses that have one of these for a whole group of outlets. When each outlet in a danger zone has its own GFCI, you can pretty much instantly find the cause
I am shocked to know these GFCI things do exist. Never saw these in Brazil, I've googled for it and i found this kind of outlet is only obligatory in construction sites.... and we do use electrical showers without it here *yikes.*
Yeah, when I saw on UA-cam those electrical showers you mention my brain nearly melted from the "nope" overload. But as far as GFCIs go, only newly wired homes have them here in Romania too, which means basically nobody ever saw one.
Check your electrical panel for a similar test button. The rest of the world puts them there, not in individual outlets. Mind you if you don't see a test button there either and you own your house then you might want to call an electrician.....
In Australia only new properties or rented properties have them. Or old properties that have had major electrical work done, by law any major works will include installation of an RCD
Very interesting. At my house, there are non-GFCI outlets and various light switches that are daisy-chained off each other into God only knows how many directions, including hot lines to one thing and the neutral to a different thing. At one time, the codes allowed for such things. No idea which plugs/switches are on the original leads and which ones are the daisy chained ones. Keeps things interesting! And about two-thirds of the house is on a single breaker (although, to be fair, we've made it this far!). Now, working with having an electrician try to make sense out of all of this without needing a home equity loan.
Nicola Ramoso I only learnt that US homes don’t have it centralised when I first visit the US a few years ago. I was shocked (sorry). I always take it as granted, grow up in Hong Kong we have this as standard since the 80s. I also hate the US plug. The plug get loosen from socket easy, it expose metal with live current when not fully plugged in. In Hong Kong we had a mixed of US plug and European plug until it was all standardized to UK plug in the late 80s I think, man it is so much nicer!
Copious thanks! Most of my adult life I've seen these outlets. I viewed them with a full glaze over my eyes as I had zero concept of what they were about. After this brief tutorial it's a whole new world of viewing the outlets in my house.
That's funny, here in France, we call them « differential circuit breakers » (disjoncteur différentiel). That actually really helped me to understand how they work.
In Belgium we are (required) to have a big GFCI ("differential", translated from our flemish/kinda french word for it) for everything (300mA if I recall) and for humid rooms an additional more sensitive one (30mA). I had no idea they used in the USA them on idividual outlets, thanks for the video!
Allowing large leakage currents is fine for protecting the equipment, but doesn't protect people from shock. If you have a heating element that suddenly finds a path to ground inside your electric kettle, it trips. But if a person grabs both the hot and neutral, they can get electrocuted because a RCD doesn't detect this as a fault. The GFCI design adds this protection and is called a RCBO in the UK.
That is likely because of TT earthing. I the US they use TN-C-S so on case if a fault hight current flows through the neutral and thr breaker trips. In TT the fault current is just a few amperes so one needs additional protection like a 100-300 mA RCD.
I tested one of these by throwing a running hair drier into a sink of water (not touching the water myself). Multiple times. It worked every time. And the hairdryer still worked after it was dried and reset!
I have a lot of fish tanks, so my husband and I became intimately familiar with installing these things--because if I end up with 75 gallons pouring out onto my floor, I want to be able to run up and try to stop it, instead of worrying whether there's a wet cord or outlet somewhere that's out to get me. XD
At 4:25, it is my understanding that this is a faux pas... You shouldn't daisy chain like that. There are only two screws in case you need to isolate one outlet from the other in the duplex (because you switched one, etc). You should always, again to my understanding of code, use a wire nut to join multiple branch circuits with a short lead going to the outlet. Yes, this can make for a crowded box, more time, and I've seen it done the other way a LOT... But the reason for this is so that the little bridge between the two screws doesn't suddenly become a flying shrapnel grenade when it over-currents down the line and act like an open-case fuse.
Hmm. I didn't know this! I supposed that makes sense, but then again the link must be designed to carry 15 amps safely otherwise you couldn't plug in a space heater or other high current device into one side of the plug. So although code may dictate it, I think it's kinda six of one half-a-dozen of the other. If it were an issue, I think that link would be outlawed.
B.L. - that's the term, pig tailing! Thanks! Roads - I remember hearing that, but I never heard if it really was by code or not. Would be interesting to find out, I'll have to check with a customer of mine that is a pixie-wrangler.
B.L. Alley - there's somehow always time to do it right the second time. No need to double check your knowledge then, as the guy I'd check with is also an electrician. I'm glad there are skilled electricians out there doing it right for us hobbyists to follow the right way. I thank you.
I can confirm this, general wiring practice discourages using those tabs for daisy chains. Pig tailing each outlet into parallel circuits is safer and generally preferable. I think the tabs only remain for individual outlet control; one switched outlet and one constant power is probably the most common use(though they may also remain for installation in old circuits/structures). The only major draw back of pigtailing, especially with a deep electrical components like a GCFI, is small or shallow electrical boxes(typically in older structures)that can make for extremely tight or impossible installations.
In Spain we call these "Interruptor Diferencial", which would be translated as something like "Differential Interrupter", which I think also conveys their use nicely. Also we usually just get one single one in the main electrical panel of each home (or apartment), which the rest of the circuits are then branched off of.
Puting the RCD on the circuit panel can save you a feel bucks by detecting otherwise undetectable electricity leakings. It may be a pain to debug, but it pays.
what if you just put all circuit breakers off and one by one back again - it should work, where i live it is very common to have 3 phases, 230V and 40A each, with single RCD and multiple circuit breakers, ex 1 for living room, 1 bedroom, 1 washer, 1 dishwasher and etc, all sockets are with a ground , my socket 10cm from a sink has additional cover which i have to lift up manually; mind you im not an electrician
It works if you have circuit breakers that breaks not only the phase but also the neutral: unfortunately in some countries they use only to break the phase (for me, it doesn't make sense) so you can have neutral to earth faults that are impossible to isolate.
Even better are the circuit breakers with built-in individual RCDs. That means you can even tell which circuit is causing the problem, and the other circuits in your house can keep going instead of your entire house going dark because of a faulty wire somewhere.
Having just one RCD in the distribution box usually means the RCD used requires higher leakage current to trip. I have been zapped once before at 240V and the RCD didn't trip. (I tried pressing the test button, the RCD still works fine.)
Carlos Eduardo Foltran when we moved in, one day it started raining a lot suddenly the RCD tripped. It took us hours to debug it (with a friend who's electrician). In the end it turned out to be a lamp hook which had scratched the isolation of a wire and the increased air humidity was the final straw. The wiring back then was up to 70s standards, so we started our mission to rewire the entire house up to (and exceeding) todays standards
Thanks to this video I finally tested the 21 year old GFCI's in my kitchen and most of them are broken actually. They just dont trip. Now i know to exercise extra caution till i replace em. Thank you for potentially saving my beans.
Interesting to note that ground fault switches are built into all circuit breakers here in Norway by law (on newer systems anyway). Not just in the bathroom either, but the whole house.
When I bought my house, it had very few 3 pin grounded outlets at all; let alone GFCI in the correct locations. When I hired an electrician to install new outlets, they placed GFCI outlets at the start of each circuit. They work great!
Usually for pool pumps and outdoor installations, although I sometimes see bathroom circuits that feed garage circuits if there is only one or two outlets there (in older homes). Tripped by your hedge trimmer plugged in the garage outlet because you cut it's own cord with it, but can't find the GFCI? Go look in the bathroom or the kitchen for dead outlets (true story, on a mobile home in that case).
One likely reason for why GFCI outlets are so common is that they can be retrofitted in old buildings with fused overcurrent protection. One common use of GFCI breakers and outlets is to add 3 prong outlets on circuits but to be code compliant "no equipment ground" signs need to be put on the outlets.
In my country they are in the general box at the beginning of the house circuit and cut all power, and they are call Differential Switches. BTW Very interesting video!
in the UK there used to be a thing called an earth leakage operated circuit breaker, which shut off power to the entire house when it tripped, but it had a major flaw (before the RCD took its place, and some installations in the UK have one RCD for the whole house, although that is no longer allowed in the regulations here, as newer installations are required to be either Dual RCD or have RCBOs, or a combination of RCDs and RCBOs)
Just stumbled on this video. As usual, amazing (and hilarious) job explaining how GFCI/RCDs work! I had one of these at my last apartment (condo) and one day it tripped - for no apparent reason (the RCD was in the service panel). So I would reset it and anywhere from 15 seconds to 5 minutes later it would trip again! After looking around a bit, I found a leaky pipe was dripping water onto a power outlet under my kitchen sink! The RCD was a lifesaver!!
Before I could move into this old house, the ordinances required the seller, among many other "violations" written up by the city inspector, to install GFCI's in several locations, and be inspected (again) by the city inspector. I test the GFCI's periodically. One day I, having lived there over ten years, I tested the one in the main bathroom, but for the first time leaving the radio still plugged in, which is a bit awkward, but I didn't want to miss a chunk of my program. And I didn't. The radio was still playing after the GFCI tripped. For over ten years I would have been electrocuted if whatever the GFCI was supposed to be protecting me from had occurred. Not really surprisingly, it turned out that the wires to the "line" were reversed with the wires to the "load," and the GFCI worked right when rewired. Somebody guessed wrong. Aren't electricians and inspectors supposed to know these things? Of course I seldom take the radio right into the bathtub water with me, so no harm done really.
It is entirely possible to get shocked (electrocuted) using a GFCI outlet. If the hot is touched and the return path is back through the same outlet (the return path being the metal frame/chassis of a 2-wire appliance) the GFCI switching will not take place. It will behave as the second light bulb going on (9:05), with you being the bulb. Zzzzzzaaaaapppp !!!! This point should have been brought up, as it helps explain why many devices now have a ground (3-wire) cord.
That's not true. The ground isn't monitored, so current going out of the hot and into the same outlet's ground will still trip the GFCI. That's why it's ok to replace old 2 pin receptacles with a GFCI labeled "No Equipment Ground"
@@hgpo27 The problem is, this doesn't detect a ground fault, it detects a difference in current. That current different does not have to be caused by a ground fault so you're more specifically being a bit inaccurate. RCCI makes most sense I think.
@@asharak84 Where else can electricity go other than to ground? If it isn't taking the proper path through the neutral and hot, it is faulting to ground through some other means. That is the only path electricity can take other than the designed circuit. Path of least resistance. Residual current doesn't really describe the scenario. It's not residual, its faulting to ground.
Am doing University mechanical engineering industrial training, and I can say that this video officially helped me learn stuff I need to know before I was taught.
Now repeat that experiment with a DC fault current. In the UK, we’ve recently seen discussions emerge in the electrical community about DC fault currents. These will saturate the magnetisation in the sense coil, causing the device to trip at a higher fault current threshold than 30ma, at a longer time than 30ms. Sometimes the RCD won’t trip at all. There’s a good demonstration here: ua-cam.com/video/zL8KUnnQHE4/v-deo.html Now think about all the devices in your house that have a DC load: Led bulbs, almost all electronic power supplies for phones, TVs, computers, dc motors in vacuum cleaners etc.... Now there’s different types of RCDs. There “type AC” which is the most common type for AC fault currents. There’s “type A”, which is also suitable for pulsating DC fault currents. There’s “type F” (can’t remember the exact use) “Type B” is suitable for smooth DC fault currents “Type B+” is suitable for smooth DC and high frequency AC fault currents, There emerging opinion within the electrical community is that the RCD’s that are widely installed in domestics and commercial premises are probably obsolete and ineffective due to all the DC loads that we have in our houses that could potentially suffer an earth fault.
But wouldn't that simply not n matter since the power coming from the wall is AC? For phone chargers, the conversion is done after it gets past the GFCI. I'm not sure on lighting.
@@reinbeers5322 The issue is that a DC-current from the output could short to phase or neutral, which could prevent the RCD from tripping. In European houses those are additionally used for circuit protection. Therefore a fire could still start (due to sparking, we have 230 V) and the RCD would not detect the fault. Btw: charging equipment for electric cars requires an RCD Type B.
Mr Dyer, was your comment to highjack people from this video, or to inflate your ego? In America DC is generated at point of use, with diodes in place to stop those pesky fault currents you seem to care about. In industry we see 600 volt DC for overhead cranes, and winches. motor-generator for welding. DC works best for anything that requires a variable output, and is grounded independently at the source, the "created" problem you mention doesn't exist here in the states.
@@shikkonin At the very least, you and I are not talking about the same circumstance. In your version, you have dreamed up a problem that DOESN'T EXIST. Our 600 volt systems are completely isolated from humans, cranes and winches(OVERHEAD), there are 440 volt DC welders, again these would be for industrial applications( for joining sheet steel over 1/2 to 1 1/4 inches) and isolated from humans. You make the same point as the OP, and neither of you seem to know that these systems are created and used within one building. Beyond the 6 volts of a switching power supply on a PC, and the two uses I mentioned above we don't use it in the States.
I used to test the GFCI outlet in the bathroom of my childhood home faithfully on the first of each month. I had no idea what it did or was for, probably until I was in high school, but as soon as I was old enough to read the instruction on it, I followed it. I was... just that kind of child. :)
Differential switch also in Italy (among technicians), salvavita (lit: life-saver) for the folks due to original BTicino trademark. But sometimes 'salvavita' is used referring to MCB.
I’m so thankful that every wall plug circuit in my house run through one of these, makes me feel much safer knowing it’ll break no matter what plug I use.
@@simonrichard9873 The big-fuse ring-circuit topic is british issue, here in mainland EU we have 10A or 16A MCBO to protect our outlets circuits, also our outlets are also protected by shutters (what in the US I think is 'tamper-proof' rating). US outlets are rarely protected by RCD and less by shutters. 16A is 16A 10V 100V 230V or 400V the joule effect is the same
I just love this, it's very interresting and in my experience, finding out what device tripped your circuit isn't that hard, because in most cases it directly happens when you plug it in, but I can see the benefit on having this on every outlet. But isn't it weird that it doesn't protect for short circuits? You could see that as the job of the circuit braker, but it just seems handy. Mainly, because my dad just snips live wires, because he couldn't be bother to walk to our service panel. (PS. I'm from the EU so I don't exactly understand the US version of the system)
Most of the time, you're right, it's pretty easy. But it isn't always. If it happens when you turn on the device instead, that's just as easy. But some stuff works on a timer. If it's something you've plugged into a timer switch, then you should be able to easily identify it when you test the timer when you first set it up. Everybody tests these things when they set them up, right? (Oops. I didn't at least once.) Other situations can be more complex. When you have complicated electrical connections, such as a computer and peripherals that are wired to it, the fault could only occur when a specific thing is attempted. For example, a periodic check of the printer's ink supply could cause a momentary residual current to flow through the cable to the printer and out the wrong neutral power socket. If you keep your printer off most of the time, stuff only fails on rare intervals. If the periodic check happens every half hour, and most of the time you need to print something the printer's only on for less than 5 minutes, you may not even associate it with the fact the printer was on for a while. There are other complex situations, I just gave the computer example because I work with them a lot so I'm familiar with it. The most baffling RCCI problem I ever diagnosed was shortly after I got married. We moved into an apartment whose RCCI outlets had colored reset and test buttons as shown in the video. For the first few months, at seemingly random intervals, the RCCI outlets would trip. I was never around when it happened, and there wasn't anything plugged into them. Finally, my ex asked me if I knew how long it took the circuit breaker in the bathroom to reset. She'd been trying to test them for months, but they always took long enough to reset she gave up waiting. (To be clear, we didn't get divorced over that. We didn't even argue over it. Also, we're still friends. I'm sure I'd have encountered more baffling RCCI problems if I were an electrician, but I'm just a computer programmer.)
I remember as I kid, I had these in my room, I clicked them all and thought I broke them. I basically had no power in my room for months because I was too scared to tell my dad.
I tripped the CFI in my bathroom once by running a wet/dry shaver under water while it was plugged in. I was just glad nobody told god 😳
@@thefaboo Really happy you didn't fry yourself, lol!
That’s honestly hilarious 😆
@@thefaboo fun fact unless you have better grond than the minus, you dont get hurt by dropping the toaster in the bathtub
@@rambo8863 thats false, I would know
0:34 "Will I ask a fourth question?"
The inserted dry humor is priceless.
@Husk You must be fun at parties
I think its fun
@Husk You are entitled to your opinion; however, I disagree with your opinion and find it quite funny. I don't know why exactly, maybe it's because it is akin to dad jokes (of which I find the majority hilarious for some damn reason, and I'm not a father). Or maybe it's because of it being dry humor like Tim-J.Swan said.
@Husk ad hominem, I see
@Husk I'm pretty sure I used the semi-colon correctly. I did not start the sentence with 'however' but I did use it in its correct usage. Example: The results remained consistent; however, the data were analyzed.
I have finally learned to watch your vids. When I saw the title, I thought "I know what GFCIs are," keep scrolling, then I thought "He spends 15 mins explaining, may be interesting." Everything you explain that I already know, I know much more clearly after I learn how much I didn't know. Thank you, sir!
I didn't learn more about humidifiers by watching his humidifier videos, except for the one about the personal air conditioner that is not an air conditioner. But I still feel it's educational, because it feels to me that Alec is incredibly good at communicating. This is something I've struggled with my whole life. I'm getting better, but I'm not to Alec's level. It's also fun to watch someone who is so clearly excited about topics as he is.
My colorblind brother spilled the beans about brown before Alec was born. I'm not sure how old he is exactly, but he looks like a teenager in his 2013 videos. My brother struggled and failed to make bright brown back in the 1980s. Brown is one of the colors my brother sees well enough (so long as he's not trying to distinguish it from green), but he got my opinion on it because I can see color, I just got my fashion sense from my colorblind brothers.
All of that said, I've watched a lot of his other videos as well, and, yeah, everything else, I went in thinking "I know this topic" and came away knowing more about it.
@@edgrimm5862 You should try making a tik tok or do a youtube for you!
Nailed it!
I married an electical engineer. Usually I would just smile and nod when she would wax poetic about eletrical stuff. However, because of this channel I have the ability to carry a conversation with her about her job now.
Must be sad that your wife has the valks
Green
This is very cute!
Jason
um. excuse me ?
"don't touch the electrical engineer while wet"
For real tho, that's cute
I just tested all of my GFI outlets, and to my shock one of them failed (that is, it fails to fail). I'm glad I watched.
To your "shock" LOL
The pun is strong in this one.
It was the easiest thing to do.
I haven't watch the whole vid yet, so this may be a redundant question, but how do you safely test a safety device?
@@nikkiofthevalley Your talking about the outlet itself right? Just press the "test" button that is directly on the outlet itself and if the green light goes out and comes back on after a reset then its good. If it gives you a red light then it is likely faulty.
Any GFCI-protected electrical outlet in your home is a good test point for whatever older, perhaps vintage, electrical or electronic devices you might have decided to plug in after they sat around for years unused or that you had picked up at a flea market or whatever. Tube/valve type guitar amplifiers and hifi amplifiers are a particular case in point; these often have the audio ground and chassis coupled to one leg of the power cord *through a capacitor* , for the purpose of using the neutral wire as a pseudo "earth ground" to the chassis, in order to reduce audible hum and buzz. If the amplifier hummed, you would simply flip the non-polarized power plug around the other way and hopefully lessen the noise; or if the device already had a 3 wire grounded cord, there might be a switch on the back to select the ground polarity and you would set it to whichever position reduced the noise. The problem is, 60 or 70 years later those capacitors often leak voltage and so you might find some AC leakage current on the chassis of the amplifier, and also on the guitar strings and metal hardware of the guitar. However, plugging such a device with a leaky "death cap", as they are often referred to, into a GFCI outlet will immediately trip the built-in breaker and alert you of a dangerous situation.. As I have noted, vintage guitar amplifiers pose a special problem and should *always* be converted/ upgraded to a grounded 3 wire polarized cord and plug, with the death cap removed.
Inspired by this, I tested the socket in my bathroom. When I hit reset, my lights came back on for a moment, then turned back off. Guess my socket needs to be replaced, haha! Thanks for potentially saving my life I guess.
You have to push it in until it clicks back to the "locked and loaded" position. That's deeper than the surface.
@Opecuted lmao but I am fast
@@itsjustthatsimple628 but i am faster
It's the "test" button that you're testing, not the "reset" button, lmfao
@@far2ez539 This was after testing it. Something had failed in the switch when I tested it, and any time I subsequently hit reset it would momentarily turn on then trip again. Ended up having to replace the plug which fixed the issue.
When I was a kid, I thought that those plugs were waterproof and even shot it with a water pistol for fun... I'm lucky that nothing ever happened to me but please parents, if your child ask why there's buttons on that plug, give a better explanation than just "it protects from water" or something like that...
i once threw water on a gfci and it started arcing and went pop
Mister Brookes And one of the largest grounded exposed metal objects in a typical home is the actual kitchen sink! Standard example in EE class was always someone touching a faulty kitchen appliance and the kitchen sink at the same time.
lol
Okay, I'll show my kids this video then.
Science has changed the natural course of mankind. For example had science not created safety barriers to keep you around, you'd be gone and this boring tweet begging for thumbs ups would have never been around. It's sad.
Technology Connections: "What i'm about to do is incredibly dangerous please don't do this"
Electroboom: "I might die and my body would be slowly cooking to perfection... I could post it to LiveLeak"
When he said that, I thought he was going to stick his thumb in a hot socket while he was standing in a full bathtub. I was so disappointed.
I see you a man of culture as well
it's LiveLeak
@@luigi6835 autocorrect
@@soaringvulture I like that whenever Alec says "this is incredibly dangerous, don't do this at home", what he shows is actually a safe way to do the thing. At least, so far, in all of his videos that I've seen. Disclaimer: I'm still catching up, so there could be a gem that I haven't seen. But so far, it's always been a safe investigation of something that is legitimately dangerous to investigate in a more direct manner than the route Alec takes.
I love how he goes from technical terms to calling something a “doo dad”😹
Haha, he's very good at determining when it's okay to not be technical
Lovin' this dude's way of talking too haha
Doo dad is a super technical term. Right up there with Thingimajig/Thingimabob and Doohickey.
I dig this too. This channel is awesome
Hes gotta kinda dumb it down for us and it might be for comedic purposes
You do a good job explaining stuff.
I mean... It's their job
I know lots of people who are terrible at their job
You do a great job too Camarara
Thank you
He does ok. Hea a great youtubee. But needs to explain slower amd better in my opinion or use examples
“They are a very effective safety net, but why risk falling in the first place” well said
It reminds me of a phrase I always say "if rolling a 1 will kill you, it doesn't matter how many sides they have, why roll the dice?"
Whenever I'm explaining safety things to coworkers there's some solutions that make things less dangerous, and other solutions that completely negate danger, and people like to just use the less dangerous one because it was quicker, and I'm trying to convince them to use the one with no danger
@@sewd1289 Except you're doing that constantly. sure, they're trillions of sides, but every step you take *could* be just wrong to cause you to fall and hit your head just wrong to kill you.
I appreciate the hell out of this channel. The intentionally cheesy 1980/90's public access theme, the desk-umentary feel, and your blazers. At first I thought this was all an elaborate joke, like Infinite Solutions. I was very wrong. Appreciate all the research, and the amount of effort you must put in to make engineers seem interesting.
Oh, and thanks for not having sponsors. In a world of non-stop advertising, I seriously appreciate your dedication to storytelling without a sales pitch.
You're also very funny.
Keep it up.
I mean, the only reason he's able to do this without sponsorships is because of Patreon, which is essentially just him being sponsored by his audience. It's not that different, fundamentally. I feel like demonizing taking sponsorships is counter-productive, especially considering that that's always been how educational content has been made. PBS is (or at least was) often supported by brands that then got a shout out between programs. Most other educational content in the past was supported by massive companies that could afford the cost. Not every creator feels comfortable taking money directly from their audience for what they do (which I don't really get, but it's their choice). There's nothing wrong with accepting sponsorships to support your private endeavor, especially if you only accept ones that you actually believe in.
He is a one of a kind charming and charismatic. Like many giants of american TV he is all his own.
In Germany we call them „Fehlerstromschutzschalter“ which literally translates to „False Currentflow Protection Switch“.
In Germany we still call them RCD or at least Fi
Different dialects?
That is the technical term, but casually they are just called "FI" for "F"ehler (=fault) and then the symbol for the current "I"
Why did it end up being one whole word lmao?
Ryszmarine That’s how german language works. We just add stuff together. For example a Lighter is a “Fire Thing”. Doesn’t matter how many words there are as long as it describes the functionality.
Nice. For those who do not know, they make GFCI with Audible alarms, so if you have a fridge or something connected to one, it could save you a lot of money if it trips.
As a 25 year electrician, I have actually seen regular breakers NOT trip on a dead short. GFI can be a pain sometimes, but also save lives and property.
As a person who lives in America and has been overloading cheap extension cords my whole life. Most things dont use that much power. Basically the things that make things hot are all u have to worry about. The rest u can bunch up on a $5 extension cord and it wont even get warm.
At one point, we replaced an outlet, and to cut power to the one in question, we hit one of the GFCIs to cut the power. But when we reset it, we actually had to reset the breaker for that circuit to get the thing going again. Does anyone have an idea as to what might be the problem, if there is one?
Also, if the outlet with the GFCI we used were being protected by an AFCI, it would go off rather frequently, as I get an arc even from my computer charger. Probably should replace that outlet too
in australia we use this term to make it easier when training to be electricians; RCD's save people, Circuit Breakers save your house
in australia we use this term to make it easier when training to be electricians; RCD's save people, Circuit Breakers save your house
This channel is so rich in quality content. It’s all the electrical and technology questions that are hard to ask. It’s all the stuff you don’t even know you don’t even know
I'm an electrician (but definitely not an electrical engineer) and I never thought about the minutiae that goes into the GFI outlets so it was actually great to see.
In Dutch language we call it an aardlek schakelaar, which translates to: Earthleak switch. I think this covers it well! And indeed, in The Netherlands it is placed in the switch box to protect a part of the house, or in my case the whole house.
In Finland they are called vikavirtasuoja (fault current protector). IMO this is clear. Terms that refer to earth and ground confuse many as they think it is related to the ground wire.
In Czech it's called proudový chránič (current protector) which isn't very helpful
In Czech it's called proudový chránič (current protector) which isn't very helpful
I live in South Africa, over here we call them an Earth leakage circuit breaker. I just thought that might intrest you🙂.
*earth leakage*
@@based980 ikr
Yup Most countries in Asia call it ELCB as well, Earth Leakage Circuit Breaker
Michael Imray bruh the electric is sent into the ground in case of leakages
Same in India.
Me: At 3 a.m. about to sleep
UA-cam Algorithm: Hey, wanna watch someone talk about outlets!
Me: Sure!
Me at 6:30 trying to sleep
Huh, it's 2:50 a.m. for me right now. Close enough.
This guy could put a chihuahua full of caffeine to sleep.
Funny I saw this comment exactly at 3am
Yet again you've covered something cool we use in construction frequently. If you've ever watched someone drop a live powertool in to a flooded lift shaft without one like I have, you'll know why. Really cool you reinforced the fact that testing them really is testing them for real and that mechanical faults are just as good a reason to test as electrical!
I actually shocked myself with an electric outlet one time trying to plugin my computer in the dark. I was feeling for the outlet and accidentally got the plug half in, half out with my finger touching the metal. Fortunately, I was saved by a built-in safety measure: electricity going to the muscles of my arm caused them to seize and jerk my hand away from the outlet. It felt like something had vibrated the bones in that hand.
Good thing I wasn't in a bathtub at the time!
Why would you be plugging in a computer in the bathtub in the dark?
That happened to me aswell, got scared to death.
@@pluto8404 it was a hypothetical scenario. One could imagine trying to plug _something_ in while being unable to see the plug and being near water at the time.
@@pluto8404 Lmfao
Jesus, your plugs let you do that? There's all kinds of regulation about how much of the live pins has to be sheathed on plugs here to prevent exactly that kind of thing. o.o
I once played an electric guitar plugged into my amplifier while on a wet concrete walkway around a swimming pool. Need I go on? Ok, I will lol. My shoes got wet from walking around the pool. I touched my guitar's pickup and the metal part of my amp's handle at the same time. Even today, 40 years later, I can still feel the insanely horrible BUZZZZZ! through my whole body, and believe it or not, I could FEEL that the current was alternating really really fast (60 times a second, actually). It only takes one shock like that to make me pray to the god of electrons to never feel that again!
I can - almost - laugh about it now, but musicians and vocalists have been killed, some recently, by touching an ungrounded microphone.
I can relate to that. The best way to describe a shock on 120V AC is that you feel it vibrating. I took a shock on 1600V AC and that just plain hurt. My hand felt numb for a few hours afterwards (it only went from my middle finger to about my wrist)
Reminds me of when I was like 5 years old and wanted to test the new oven's lamp, I couldn't get enough extension chords to the outlet I could reach so I used a transformer mid way there. Step up 127v to 220v and that was my 1st electrical shock
Hi yes why on earth was mains voltage running through your guitar. This makes no sense to me as to how you would get a shock here. Handle on the amp shouldn't be connected to any sort of ground. Should be completely isolated. Your pickups should have less than a volt going through them at any time, they dont actually receive any voltage from the amp. No idea how you managed this.
@@ccleake1 You see, there's a lot of "should" and "shouldn't" happening here. In normal situations, yes. When shit goes bad, no so much.
The strings are grounded on a guitar, if this ground gets electrified with mains voltage at the amp, you get a mains shock on your fingers. You never know the absurdity of some electrical designs out there after all.
@@Kalvinjj I had a brand new gretsch that would shock the hell out of me from it's vibrato bar lol
I’m an electrician and I really appreciate this video. You explained how these worked very well.
Somebody once tipped off this is a kind of ripoff,
It should handle twenty amps great.
But the only thing preventin' a twenty-amp connection,
Is the shape of the holes on the faceplate.
Well my hand starts aching but it's stopped by this breaking,
If it weren't for this thing I might've hit the ground shaking!
Didn't make sense not to install one,
Not just to meet code, but for protection.
So that's what we do, it's smart you see,
No-one wants to play things that risky.
A shock does more than leave marks.
The last thing you see could be sparks!
Hey now, you should use these, they're called G-F-C-Is.
Hey now, they're important, don't get paralyzed.
Loose current isn't your friend,
You don't want to meet an untimely end.
This is beautiful
I hate you.
Bruh...
So I'm not the only one who caught the "Shape of an L" thing 😏
Oh man. I had to read this twice to realize it’s All Star
In Germany (and in large parts of Europe) RCDs have been absolute standard for ALL sockets and lamps for very many years (and for the bathroom for many decades).
For this reason, they are almost always permanently installed in the fuse box or electrical distribution of the house. They normally cost about 40 bucks.
I know i am late, but this guy that makes these videos (and as good as they are) has such an elitist aura when it comes to electronics, he really dislikes it when Euros educate him on the superior network LOL
@@spicesmuggler2452 haha lol
Don't Americans often think they are the best or have the best (system)? 😅
@@003General No, that's just Europeans saying what Americans say, as Europeans are prone to do.
@@wta1518 ok
@@spicesmuggler2452 I think you’re taking him too seriously lol.
In Germany, this safety measure is called "Fehlerschutzschalter" (fault protection switch) or "FI" in short and is required to be build into every flats or houses main power supply
Funny how many languages each seem to have a slightly different common term to describe these devices. Here in the Netherlands they are normally refered to as 'aardlekschakelaar' which literaly translates to 'earth leak switch'.
@@RC534 Yes this is funny ! In france it is call "interrupteur différentiel" or in short "différentiel" (differential switch) : because it check for a... difference in the current. Everyone named it differently !
@@tom-sn4gd this is such an elegant name
@@tom-sn4gd actually similar to russian, it's called "differencial'nyj apparat" or "difapparat" for short here, literally means "differential machine"
@@RC534In Sweden we call them ground fault breakers
14:50 “shape of an L on her fore head” top left by his hand
an RCD/GFCI video is just about the last place where i would've expected an all star reference... fucks sake lol
GOLD! 😹
Well, the years stop comin' and they don't stop comin'
Hey now!!!
(You're an all-star)
WELL, THE YEARS START COMING AND THEY DONT STOP COMING
FED TO THE RULES AND I HIT THE GROUND RUNNING
DIDNT MAKE SENSE NOT TO LIVE FOR FUN
YOUR BRAIN GETS SMART BUT YOUR HEAD GETS DUMB
In Europe, all safety devices are usually centralised, and it has been years since these elements were allowed to be placed outside the control panel.
Normally we call it a differential, and we have them calibrated to 30 mA.
(30 mA (for full circuit, not for one plug) and 230 AC volts, of course.)
As for the circuit-breakers, they are the same but in a panel, they also protect against overcurrent and short circuits.
I think it is 30 mA for bathrooms and 300mA for general circuits
15 mA or 30 mA. If you exceed 30 mA in losses you need to split the circuit. (In Spain and in houses, not industrial this is another thing).
More than 30 mA will kill you... this is the reason that forces you to split the circuits in 30 mA max possible losses. In any situation will stop you to death ;)
Maybe in Belgium is different don't know...
Same in Russia. All houses and apartments (except for old ones) must have differential breakers in main panel
like this imgur.com/a/22cEvV5
In Belgium it's 30mA for moist locations (like bathroom), 300mA for dry locations and if you go extremely wet (submerged) it should even be 10mA. In dry conditions you should be able to survive a very short jolt of 230V/300mA but under the right conditions even a 230V/30mA jolt can kill you
In Denmark 30mA RCDs are required on all circuits up to 20A (those above are used for distribution). It has been a requirement for new houses since 1975, and in 2008 it became a requirement for all installations. Even those that where legal when they where made. Non-private buildings are required to hire licensed electricians to test the RDCs every year, who uses equipment that measure that the RCD triggers fast enough.
“Will I ask a fourth question?” Had me laughing my butt off🤣 thank you for that!
I have an Electricians degree, but I love these videos because everyone can always use a refresher from time to time.
As a kid, a show like yours would be on my must watch list, every week. As an adult, there is no difference. Please keep making this amazing content and we love your work. Also, put speakers in more stuff.
in the UK, the first time I saw these, they weren't aimed at household socket protection at all. They were basically marketed as inline plug devices for use with garden equipment (lawnmowers, strimmers, hedge trimmers, etc) as ways to protect you from shock if you accidentally cut the power cable. We didn't get them build into household sockets until much later.
In the UK and Europe, instead of having one outlet protected, theyre usually mounted in the breaker box and protect the whole house or a room
NO WAY! Wow. Just wow. I'm an electrician so I know my way around Dutch electrical wiring and know a bit about US-wiring and electrics, so I didn't thought I'd see something new in this video.But I NEVER knew there were RCD's built into wall-sockets. And just when I thought that was all, you started talking about appliances with RCD's mounted INSIDE the plug!
To talk about these devices: In the Netherlands we tend to call them 'Aardlekschakelaars', literally translated you end up with something like 'Earth-leakage switch'.Though it indicates it does 'something' with a leak somewhere, it's hard for many people to understand that the safety-ground wire (which we just call earth or PE in electricians-language) has nothing to do with the RCD itself: it only senses that there is current leaking somewhere, but as it's not returning to neutral, we assume it's leaking to earth.
And about the place where these devices sit: it's common in the Netherlands to have these in the service-cabinet (metercabinet as we like to call it).Indeed, it can be hard to find the cause of the leak, but that's also some common sense: just unplug everything on the same group (for as far as possible) and start replugging until the RCD trips and there's your fault. Garden-lighting is notorious though for moisture and causing random tripping of the RCD and because you have to open the switchboxes in the metercabinet, most people don't think about that possibility.
We got our metercabinet renewed last year. We got PKN6 RCD's from Eaton. Big downside from these is that they don't indicate the kind of fault, whereas the devices from ABB I use on a daily basis at work, the DS201 series, feature an extra indicator so you know the type of fault that occured.An overcurrent just trips the device, throws the lever down ánd moves a green 'signal' in a small window just above the lever.Resetting it makes the green signal turn red again.A ground fault however, does all of the above, but also shoots out a blue indicator in the middle of the handle, indicating the device has tripped because of a ground fault.
In Belgium, the usual name is 'Verliesstroomschakelaar' (literally translated: 'Current-loss switch).
Definitely been very happy with ABB products wherever I've used them, but being as Square D and Eaton seem to be preferred in Canada, ABB tends to be far more expensive here. For industrial products ABB prices are fairly on par depending on suppliers.
Nothing against you guys, but what is with your language, it just looks like you gave a kid a keyboard and they banged on random keys.
A good rule of thumb for figuring out which device set of the switch is to unplug the last thing you touched, re-enable the switch and try again.
Also in Flanders, the metercabinet is often called the "plombkas", literally the "kast" ('cabinet', the t isn't articulated nor spelled) where you put the "plombs" ('fuses', the b is also not articulated but appears in writing), which I presume comes from the French word for lead, i.e. what the old style fuses that melt were made of.
@@aphenioxPDWtechnology "Verliesstroom" would be "Forlorn Stream" using the English cognates. It sounds absolutely poetic, like someplace haunted.
As a Dutch person who doesn't know all that much about electricity, thank you for explaining how this relates to our situation.
1:35 also because plumbing is grounded so in addition to your wet hands having an easier connection to live, your body is more likely to have a decent path to ground
Excellent presentation. I'm an electrician and I knew the gfci detected a current inbalance, but I didn't know how this was achieved. And I didn't know such a tiny current inbalance would trip it. I knew they were fast. But you quantified it for me.
My house, and many houses in Michigan since the 80s, have GFIs in the circuit panels centralized for all electrical outlets (indoors and outdoors outlets in my case). And indeed you do spend allot of time running back and forth to the panel for trouble shooting.
1:38 The musician in me heard a “wet power chord” and thought of a guitar power chord with wet distortion
Well which one should I pee on? That chord or that chord or in my chords? I'm sorry, it's 3:30 am 11 months later. This is an awesome and most important channel. This is why UA-cam was invented.
As an electrical engineer and musician, if you only knew the dangers... Your electric guitar's safely grounded, you'd think. Untill your lips touch the phantom powered mic, burning and blistering your lips. Yup, that was a "safe" voltage and current, but boy does it hurt. How to prevent? Don't ground your amp. Also, imagine: outdoor gig, rainy, foggy or damp weather. Got a wall of marshall/vox/*insert favorite flavour*. How safe do you think it is? Well, of course it has a transformer, so high voltage is separated from line. But not the energy. And where does every ground fault go? You didn't ground your amp to not be shocked by the mic. So every fault goes through anything else grounded. Via your guitar strings, through you to the ground you are standing on. And this was just one example...
When I moved to USA this was the first thing it called my attention. And I was so frustrated everytime that I plugged the hair dryer and it was "not working" because the outlet was on test. But now that I understand what they are, I will never get annoyed about it. Thanks for such a good video!!!! 🙏🏼
In Italy we call those devices (which are normally fitted inside the distribution panel) “salvavita”, literally lifesaver, and I always loved that name, because it speaks for itself and you don’t need to know what residual current or a ground fault is, you know it’s to save your life (also we have 230v which is much more dangerous)
Actually we call them 'interruttori differenziali' (differential switches). Salvavita is a BTicino trademark. But I agree that the name has been selected well.
Davide Bacchi technical term whatever, but everybody calls them that, the only problem is that most people tend to call also the MCBs, with only overcurrent protection “salvavita” which is wrong and might lead to confusion
Also, fun fact, they call them salvavita too in Malta
Voltage is not what kills you, it's the amps
@@tally1604 Can't have amps without voltage. For a given resistance (e.g. a human), current flow is dependent on voltage.
"Will i ask a fourth question"
At that point I had to stop the video to catch my breath
Sweet video!
You need to some cardio!
The past year I've been living in my own home and I find myself coming back to these videos often to understand what to change or do with my home
Hahahahaha, the fact you threw in an "All Star" by Smash Mouth reference...and I caught it... Well done!! Can't wait for the next video!
Well, the amps start coming and they don’t stop coming
Hey now, you're an All Star....
I'm mad I missed it
Had to replay those frames a couple times before I understood what he was doing
I ran headfirst into the comments looking for this as soon as I saw that.
Excellent video. One thing I'll add (well...recommend)...particularly in Kitchens for the counter receptacles. Don't string them (don't use one and then wire additional receptacles, as they are designed). The 5mA current protection is total and if you are cooking some masterpiece that has the mixer, toaster, blender...and whatnot all going...these devices are often "reactive" loads that will have an influence on the current and timing that can cause a false-trip. Spend the extra money and let EACH receptacle be its own GFCI and you will never get false-trips again but be every bit as protected.
In the USA you can (and in some cases) do get breakers with GFCI (and pretty much all circuits are now AFCI...different subject). Depending on what is being protected and where your breaker panel is, it would be a big annoyance to have to trundle down in the the basement/garage or wherever your panel is just to reset the breaker for this sort of trip. This also comes back to the more stuff you have plugged into the circuit and the longer the cable run is, the greater the likelihood of a false trip becomes (that long wire run to the receptacles actually consumes some electricity to heat up the wire too and you don't want that counting against you on your 5mA.
Lastly, it was quite informative that internally the receptacle you showed has 20A contacts though a difference in the two models you didn't present is that a "TR" is going to also be Tamper Resistant (has the little doors to prevent kids from sticking things in). So you might get a price difference there though yes, 20A receptacles do tend to be notably pricier than their 15A counterparts.
You might be pleased to know that this video is now assigned watching for students in the Applied Electricity course at Lansing Community College. I was already a fan of yours so it was a pleasant surprise to see you in my school work!
I must say, your editing, concise & logical explanations and humour make for some of the best tech viewing on the 'net. Keep up the great work.
Excelsior!
If I was smarter I would have thought to say that first. Spot frikken on!
You can buy GFCI circuit breakers in the United States, they just aren't as common. They are easily found at Home Depot or Lowes and they even make ones that have a dual function of AFCI and GFCI. AFCI is also available in GFCI style receptacles too with some also being dual function with GFCI. AFCI is now required on almost every circuit in the house (in states that have adopted the latest electrical code) including ones that have previously required or have not required GFCI protection. You should do a video about how AFCI is different from GFCI now.
Saw a video on youtube where a hams radio would trip his neighbors AFCI!
Yeah AFCI needs some work on defining what exactly is the trip threshold, right now there's too many harmless things that can trip them, "safer" or not.
It's not safer if it generates so many false positives that you can't tell if it was a real fault or just another nuisance trip event.
44R0Ndin. AFCI circuit breakeres have gotten better at detecting actual arcs instead of electronic noise. If you are having a problem with your electronics nuisance tripping your circuit breaker, it could be one from the early 2000's and would easilly be solved by replacing the arc fault breaker with a more modern one.
Lol used to have a paper shredder that would turn on if you keyed a walkie talkies next to it
They also make combo GFCI *and* AFCI circuit breakers now. Also, while GFCI receptacles often trip at 5mA, the circuit breakers won't trip until around 30mA.
@3:14 in Romania we call it differential safety/breaker, it's the kind that protects the entire house. But if you are smart/you have enough money, you will put a precise one per room.
I was amazed to find out, in another video of yours or electriboom, that american style GFCI is much more precise than our usual RCBO.
I already know all of this(as a electricien). but I subbed because you deserve more views, you explain it very well.
greets from the netherlands!
Thanks to videos like this and others on this channel, I've been getting much more interested in learning about electricity in America. I've been watching avidly for years and I'm now pursuing an electrician certification in my state.
This system saved my life when I was in Grade 1, thanks for explaining
Those are so my fidgety self has something to do while brushing my teeth
Hey and so you can actually test it often! Mission accomplished!
lol
Excellent video, and I’m glad you touched on the differences between this and a breaker - I made the mistaken assumption that they were the same kind of thing, except that the GFCIs might be faster in their response. I’m glad to learn the truth though.
I’ll also be sure to test these more regularly now that I’m more familiar with them. Good public service announcement!
That's something that confused me about this video, in Australia/Europe/elsewhere, the GFCI/RCDs are integrated with circuit breakers so they have additional protections. E.g. if there is a large amount of current being drawn when it trips, our breakers can handle that but I don't know how the American GFCI's are supposed to handle the flash over.
+Nick Stallman If I were to hazard a guess I would assume that the US outlets are designed under the assumption that they are protected by a 20A breaker and thus built with enough heat dissipation capacity to cope with the overcurrent for as long as it would take the breaker to respond. For the most part the breaker will be faster the higher the current so it's relatively consistent the amount of energy it would need to handle. I say relatively as of course extreme edge cases will destroy that such as suddenly being exposed to multiple megavolts such as in a lightning strike chances are that would indeed fry the GFCI and most of the electrical equipment attached to the circuit.
In the US any circuit that has a GFCI receptacle will ALSO be fed from a circuit breaker, either 15A or 20A and so the circuit will have short circuit and overload protection as well.
He didn't mention it, but there are GFI breakers in the US as well. These devices combine short circuit, overload and GFI protection in a single unit and protect entire circuits...identical to RCBOs in Europe. It's just less common to use GFI breakers rather than receptacles.
You my friend are skilled in the art of explaining things in a very concise and easy to understand manner. I appreciate what you do. Keep doing it. Love being informed and educated. Knowledge is the enemy of ignorance.
I love your content, it's so easy to digest and informative. At first I was like, "how can someone take 20 minutes explains why the high setting on fans are first" but after watching you videos, it makes so much more sense lol
These things are just centralized in European homes and active on all the wiring.
It makes them a bit more of a pain to reset if a fault occurs, but safer overall imo, because you don't have unprotected outlets, lamps or whatever else in your home. And since they do have to be checked on every so often to see if they still cut the power quickly enough, a single one in a centralized location is much easier to keep track of than potentially a dozen or so throughout the house, and cheaper to replace if it does fail.
Edit: I see now you brought this up in the video, and you bring up some valid points why having these things decentralized can be advantageous, the ideal solution would probably be somewhere in the middle, like having one for each room and etc., but all accessible from a central service panel.
Just my two cents on the matter.
This explains why The GFCI was tripping after replacing an old receptacle, they were daisy chained only using hot with all of the neutrals returning to a junction installing a GFCI made it so the daisy chained outlets would instantly trip as they did not return through the outlet. Because of this video I didn't need an electrician and learn quite a bit about safety thank you
My other half doesn't quite share my love for educational content on this platform, but she sure liked your content. Both the personality, humor and presentation. I love this channel myself, just thought I'd share. Good work bud, as always!
I just started watching your videos. Love your sense of humor and I feel like a genius after watching them. Grasping concepts like these is not easy for me but the way you break it down really helps keep it interesting and practical 👍
In Canada, we do something a little different with the duplex receptacles. Yeah, we leave the tabs on and use them the same way as a normal American installation. But in some places like kitchens it was commonplace to break the tang on the hot side and use 14/3 cable, White to neutral, Black to one outlet's hot, Red to the other outlet's hot. Supply it with a ganged breaker from the panel, and then you have two 15A circuits in the same outlet - it worked great when you wanted to plug a kettle and a 4-slice toaster into the same kitchen outlet. You could always tell these outlets because if you went from narrow slot to narrow slot with a voltmeter, you'd see 240V AC...
With GFCI requirements, that has gone away, and been replaced mostly with 20A T-slot GFCI outlets on 12/2 wire. AFAIK, running the 14/3 and the ganged 15A breakers is still okay, but only in places where a GFCI would not be required. The outlet behind my fridge is, for example, wired this way. Which is great because my microwave oven sits atop my fridge, but it does mean that a nuisance trip caused by my microwave would kill the power to the fridge. I do, however, have a total of 30A at 120V available between the halves of that outlet.
Always follow building code in your region and always get it inspected. The inspector is your friend... even if he can be a pain in the ass at times.
If the outlets are still 120V each, I can see this working great where vacuum cleaners are used a lot. If they're 240V, then they would possibly be better for modern computer PSUs, as the power factor is more consistently better, TMK. I can imagine data centers using 240V receptacles.
"putting the protection at the outlet makes the device causing the problem rather obvious" not necessarily. I once had a house where half of the guest room was wired to the "load" terminals of the bathroom gcfi. Fixed it myself when I figured it out, but finding that was rather unexpected.
WOW. This was amazing. You truly have a gift of sharing information in a way that is easy to understand by those who aren't familiar with the topic. So cool, and God Bless.
Why are these videos so satisfying to watch?
I am annoyed by the houses that have one of these for a whole group of outlets. When each outlet in a danger zone has its own GFCI, you can pretty much instantly find the cause
I am shocked to know these GFCI things do exist. Never saw these in Brazil, I've googled for it and i found this kind of outlet is only obligatory in construction sites.... and we do use electrical showers without it here *yikes.*
You can't use the showers you install with a GFCI. Those showers do on purpose what a GFCI is built to prevent (current to ground).
Yeah, when I saw on UA-cam those electrical showers you mention my brain nearly melted from the "nope" overload. But as far as GFCIs go, only newly wired homes have them here in Romania too, which means basically nobody ever saw one.
Check your electrical panel for a similar test button. The rest of the world puts them there, not in individual outlets. Mind you if you don't see a test button there either and you own your house then you might want to call an electrician.....
In Australia only new properties or rented properties have them. Or old properties that have had major electrical work done, by law any major works will include installation of an RCD
@@AttilaAsztalos We had them in Oman since the late 90's afaik
Very interesting. At my house, there are non-GFCI outlets and various light switches that are daisy-chained off each other into God only knows how many directions, including hot lines to one thing and the neutral to a different thing. At one time, the codes allowed for such things. No idea which plugs/switches are on the original leads and which ones are the daisy chained ones. Keeps things interesting! And about two-thirds of the house is on a single breaker (although, to be fair, we've made it this far!). Now, working with having an electrician try to make sense out of all of this without needing a home equity loan.
In Italy are centralized and (fun fact) we call them salvavita which literally means "life saver".
Nicola Ramoso I only learnt that US homes don’t have it centralised when I first visit the US a few years ago. I was shocked (sorry). I always take it as granted, grow up in Hong Kong we have this as standard since the 80s. I also hate the US plug. The plug get loosen from socket easy, it expose metal with live current when not fully plugged in. In Hong Kong we had a mixed of US plug and European plug until it was all standardized to UK plug in the late 80s I think, man it is so much nicer!
Copious thanks! Most of my adult life I've seen these outlets. I viewed them with a full glaze over my eyes as I had zero concept of what they were about.
After this brief tutorial it's a whole new world of viewing the outlets in my house.
That's funny, here in France, we call them « differential circuit breakers » (disjoncteur différentiel). That actually really helped me to understand how they work.
In Belgium we are (required) to have a big GFCI ("differential", translated from our flemish/kinda french word for it) for everything (300mA if I recall) and for humid rooms an additional more sensitive one (30mA). I had no idea they used in the USA them on idividual outlets, thanks for the video!
Also, great (still rather safe in my opinion due to the way it's configured) explanation setup!
Also great pro and con explanation for both setups, glad I watched the whole video!
Allowing large leakage currents is fine for protecting the equipment, but doesn't protect people from shock. If you have a heating element that suddenly finds a path to ground inside your electric kettle, it trips. But if a person grabs both the hot and neutral, they can get electrocuted because a RCD doesn't detect this as a fault. The GFCI design adds this protection and is called a RCBO in the UK.
That is likely because of TT earthing. I the US they use TN-C-S so on case if a fault hight current flows through the neutral and thr breaker trips. In TT the fault current is just a few amperes so one needs additional protection like a 100-300 mA RCD.
"Will I ask a forth question?" , funniest thing heard on UA-cam today.
I tested one of these by throwing a running hair drier into a sink of water (not touching the water myself). Multiple times. It worked every time. And the hairdryer still worked after it was dried and reset!
I have a lot of fish tanks, so my husband and I became intimately familiar with installing these things--because if I end up with 75 gallons pouring out onto my floor, I want to be able to run up and try to stop it, instead of worrying whether there's a wet cord or outlet somewhere that's out to get me. XD
At 4:25, it is my understanding that this is a faux pas... You shouldn't daisy chain like that. There are only two screws in case you need to isolate one outlet from the other in the duplex (because you switched one, etc).
You should always, again to my understanding of code, use a wire nut to join multiple branch circuits with a short lead going to the outlet. Yes, this can make for a crowded box, more time, and I've seen it done the other way a LOT...
But the reason for this is so that the little bridge between the two screws doesn't suddenly become a flying shrapnel grenade when it over-currents down the line and act like an open-case fuse.
Hmm. I didn't know this! I supposed that makes sense, but then again the link must be designed to carry 15 amps safely otherwise you couldn't plug in a space heater or other high current device into one side of the plug. So although code may dictate it, I think it's kinda six of one half-a-dozen of the other. If it were an issue, I think that link would be outlawed.
I could be wrong (would love an NEC citation), but I believe daisy-chaining is allowed, but pigtailing is by far the most preferred method.
B.L. - that's the term, pig tailing! Thanks!
Roads - I remember hearing that, but I never heard if it really was by code or not. Would be interesting to find out, I'll have to check with a customer of mine that is a pixie-wrangler.
B.L. Alley - there's somehow always time to do it right the second time.
No need to double check your knowledge then, as the guy I'd check with is also an electrician. I'm glad there are skilled electricians out there doing it right for us hobbyists to follow the right way. I thank you.
I can confirm this, general wiring practice discourages using those tabs for daisy chains. Pig tailing each outlet into parallel circuits is safer and generally preferable. I think the tabs only remain for individual outlet control; one switched outlet and one constant power is probably the most common use(though they may also remain for installation in old circuits/structures). The only major draw back of pigtailing, especially with a deep electrical components like a GCFI, is small or shallow electrical boxes(typically in older structures)that can make for extremely tight or impossible installations.
In Spain we call these "Interruptor Diferencial", which would be translated as something like "Differential Interrupter", which I think also conveys their use nicely. Also we usually just get one single one in the main electrical panel of each home (or apartment), which the rest of the circuits are then branched off of.
i didn't know i had one of these in my bathroom until seeing this video and checking
i've lived here for 17 years
Puting the RCD on the circuit panel can save you a feel bucks by detecting otherwise undetectable electricity leakings. It may be a pain to debug, but it pays.
what if you just put all circuit breakers off and one by one back again - it should work, where i live it is very common to have 3 phases, 230V and 40A each, with single RCD and multiple circuit breakers, ex 1 for living room, 1 bedroom, 1 washer, 1 dishwasher and etc, all sockets are with a ground , my socket 10cm from a sink has additional cover which i have to lift up manually; mind you im not an electrician
It works if you have circuit breakers that breaks not only the phase but also the neutral: unfortunately in some countries they use only to break the phase (for me, it doesn't make sense) so you can have neutral to earth faults that are impossible to isolate.
Even better are the circuit breakers with built-in individual RCDs. That means you can even tell which circuit is causing the problem, and the other circuits in your house can keep going instead of your entire house going dark because of a faulty wire somewhere.
Having just one RCD in the distribution box usually means the RCD used requires higher leakage current to trip. I have been zapped once before at 240V and the RCD didn't trip. (I tried pressing the test button, the RCD still works fine.)
Carlos Eduardo Foltran when we moved in, one day it started raining a lot suddenly the RCD tripped. It took us hours to debug it (with a friend who's electrician). In the end it turned out to be a lamp hook which had scratched the isolation of a wire and the increased air humidity was the final straw. The wiring back then was up to 70s standards, so we started our mission to rewire the entire house up to (and exceeding) todays standards
Thanks to this video I finally tested the 21 year old GFCI's in my kitchen and most of them are broken actually. They just dont trip. Now i know to exercise extra caution till i replace em. Thank you for potentially saving my beans.
I have learned so much from your channel. You have such a knack for clearly explaining concepts. Keep on being awesome!
14:49 no one has mentioned that fact that he says "shape" and in the top left says "of an "L" on her forehead"
😂😂😂😂😂😂
10:22 the subtle humor on this channel's videos never fail to give me a giggle
Interesting to note that ground fault switches are built into all circuit breakers here in Norway by law (on newer systems anyway). Not just in the bathroom either, but the whole house.
we have this in germany too
13:51 'a shock in their bedroom' -> "steve, how could you!"
When I bought my house, it had very few 3 pin grounded outlets at all; let alone GFCI in the correct locations. When I hired an electrician to install new outlets, they placed GFCI outlets at the start of each circuit. They work great!
These are occasionally installed into the breaker panel here in the States, but not often.
Usually for pool pumps and outdoor installations, although I sometimes see bathroom circuits that feed garage circuits if there is only one or two outlets there (in older homes). Tripped by your hedge trimmer plugged in the garage outlet because you cut it's own cord with it, but can't find the GFCI? Go look in the bathroom or the kitchen for dead outlets (true story, on a mobile home in that case).
One likely reason for why GFCI outlets are so common is that they can be retrofitted in old buildings with fused overcurrent protection. One common use of GFCI breakers and outlets is to add 3 prong outlets on circuits but to be code compliant "no equipment ground" signs need to be put on the outlets.
In my country they are in the general box at the beginning of the house circuit and cut all power, and they are call Differential Switches. BTW Very interesting video!
in the UK there used to be a thing called an earth leakage operated circuit breaker, which shut off power to the entire house when it tripped, but it had a major flaw (before the RCD took its place, and some installations in the UK have one RCD for the whole house, although that is no longer allowed in the regulations here, as newer installations are required to be either Dual RCD or have RCBOs, or a combination of RCDs and RCBOs)
Just stumbled on this video. As usual, amazing (and hilarious) job explaining how GFCI/RCDs work! I had one of these at my last apartment (condo) and one day it tripped - for no apparent reason (the RCD was in the service panel). So I would reset it and anywhere from 15 seconds to 5 minutes later it would trip again! After looking around a bit, I found a leaky pipe was dripping water onto a power outlet under my kitchen sink! The RCD was a lifesaver!!
+1 for sneaking in that Smashmouth reference. Lol
Yota_Ninja what's your UA-cam icon? It looks like an orthodox symbol.
No idea what that is lol. It's an Iron Cross with "YOTA" inside of it, I don't remember what font I used though.
Yota_Ninja it is spelled wrong :p
It spells ψοτα not γιωτα
;ρ
Before I could move into this old house, the ordinances required the seller, among many other "violations" written up by the city inspector, to install GFCI's in several locations, and be inspected (again) by the city inspector. I test the GFCI's periodically. One day I, having lived there over ten years, I tested the one in the main bathroom, but for the first time leaving the radio still plugged in, which is a bit awkward, but I didn't want to miss a chunk of my program. And I didn't. The radio was still playing after the GFCI tripped. For over ten years I would have been electrocuted if whatever the GFCI was supposed to be protecting me from had occurred. Not really surprisingly, it turned out that the wires to the "line" were reversed with the wires to the "load," and the GFCI worked right when rewired. Somebody guessed wrong. Aren't electricians and inspectors supposed to know these things?
Of course I seldom take the radio right into the bathtub water with me, so no harm done really.
Well my guess would be that either the seller did it themselves or had a buddy with a screw driver do it, instead of a trained electrician
These are really great videos to fall asleep to. It has that public access tv vibe that’s so soothing.
It is entirely possible to get shocked (electrocuted) using a GFCI outlet. If the hot is touched and the return path is back through the same outlet (the return path being the metal frame/chassis of a 2-wire appliance) the GFCI switching will not take place. It will behave as the second light bulb going on (9:05), with you being the bulb. Zzzzzzaaaaapppp !!!!
This point should have been brought up, as it helps explain why many devices now have a ground (3-wire) cord.
That's not true. The ground isn't monitored, so current going out of the hot and into the same outlet's ground will still trip the GFCI. That's why it's ok to replace old 2 pin receptacles with a GFCI labeled "No Equipment Ground"
I will call these “RCCIs.” Residual current circuit interrupter. Seems like it is the best.
Ground fault is more specific
@@hgpo27 The problem is, this doesn't detect a ground fault, it detects a difference in current. That current different does not have to be caused by a ground fault so you're more specifically being a bit inaccurate. RCCI makes most sense I think.
@@asharak84 Where else can electricity go other than to ground? If it isn't taking the proper path through the neutral and hot, it is faulting to ground through some other means. That is the only path electricity can take other than the designed circuit. Path of least resistance. Residual current doesn't really describe the scenario. It's not residual, its faulting to ground.
@@hgpo27 a lightbulb blowing can momentarily create a current difference without any ground involved, and can trip these.
@@asharak84 Proof?
Am doing University mechanical engineering industrial training, and I can say that this video officially helped me learn stuff I need to know before I was taught.
Now repeat that experiment with a DC fault current.
In the UK, we’ve recently seen discussions emerge in the electrical community about DC fault currents. These will saturate the magnetisation in the sense coil, causing the device to trip at a higher fault current threshold than 30ma, at a longer time than 30ms. Sometimes the RCD won’t trip at all.
There’s a good demonstration here:
ua-cam.com/video/zL8KUnnQHE4/v-deo.html
Now think about all the devices in your house that have a DC load:
Led bulbs, almost all electronic power supplies for phones, TVs, computers, dc motors in vacuum cleaners etc....
Now there’s different types of RCDs. There “type AC” which is the most common type for AC fault currents.
There’s “type A”, which is also suitable for pulsating DC fault currents.
There’s “type F” (can’t remember the exact use)
“Type B” is suitable for smooth DC fault currents
“Type B+” is suitable for smooth DC and high frequency AC fault currents,
There emerging opinion within the electrical community is that the RCD’s that are widely installed in domestics and commercial premises are probably obsolete and ineffective due to all the DC loads that we have in our houses that could potentially suffer an earth fault.
But wouldn't that simply not n
matter since the power coming from the wall is AC?
For phone chargers, the conversion is done after it gets past the GFCI. I'm not sure on lighting.
Well, let's just be thankful that Edison didn't win the electricity war.
@@reinbeers5322 The issue is that a DC-current from the output could short to phase or neutral, which could prevent the RCD from tripping. In European houses those are additionally used for circuit protection. Therefore a fire could still start (due to sparking, we have 230 V) and the RCD would not detect the fault. Btw: charging equipment for electric cars requires an RCD Type B.
Mr Dyer, was your comment to highjack people from this video, or to inflate your ego? In America DC is generated at point of use, with diodes in place to stop those pesky fault currents you seem to care about. In industry we see 600 volt DC for overhead cranes, and winches. motor-generator for welding. DC works best for anything that requires a variable output, and is grounded independently at the source, the "created" problem you mention doesn't exist here in the states.
@@shikkonin At the very least, you and I are not talking about the same circumstance. In your version, you have dreamed up a problem that DOESN'T EXIST. Our 600 volt systems are completely isolated from humans, cranes and winches(OVERHEAD), there are 440 volt DC welders, again these would be for industrial applications( for joining sheet steel over 1/2 to 1 1/4 inches) and isolated from humans. You make the same point as the OP, and neither of you seem to know that these systems are created and used within one building. Beyond the 6 volts of a switching power supply on a PC, and the two uses I mentioned above we don't use it in the States.
In Italy we call them "salva vita" that means literally "life saver" :D
I used to test the GFCI outlet in the bathroom of my childhood home faithfully on the first of each month. I had no idea what it did or was for, probably until I was in high school, but as soon as I was old enough to read the instruction on it, I followed it. I was... just that kind of child. :)
In France, this type of switch is called "differential switch". I think it's aptly named.
Great Geekax each name adds a little more understanding. "Differential, residual current ground fault interruptor"
"differential current interrupter" in Polish :)
"Wyłącznik różnicowoprądowy", różnicówka colloquially
Differential switch also in Italy (among technicians), salvavita (lit: life-saver) for the folks due to original BTicino trademark. But sometimes 'salvavita' is used referring to MCB.
14:50 I feel proud for paying attention (look in the corner)
Ok
It's a very odd little message. Shouldn't it say "T" instead of "L"? I'm assuming it refers to the extra part on the outlet holes.
I’m so thankful that every wall plug circuit in my house run through one of these, makes me feel much safer knowing it’ll break no matter what plug I use.
Why don't American plugs have on/off switches?
Why would they?
Better question is "why US sockets don't have neither switches nor shutters"
@@davidebacchi1340 Because our outlets are 120V and have a 15A breaker, instead of the crazy 32A 230V you guys are running.
@@simonrichard9873 The big-fuse ring-circuit topic is british issue, here in mainland EU we have 10A or 16A MCBO to protect our outlets circuits, also our outlets are also protected by shutters (what in the US I think is 'tamper-proof' rating). US outlets are rarely protected by RCD and less by shutters. 16A is 16A 10V 100V 230V or 400V the joule effect is the same
I think that overall our system is less safe, but a shock on 120V isn't that painful anyway. New buildings tend to have shutters now.
I just love this, it's very interresting and in my experience, finding out what device tripped your circuit isn't that hard, because in most cases it directly happens when you plug it in, but I can see the benefit on having this on every outlet. But isn't it weird that it doesn't protect for short circuits? You could see that as the job of the circuit braker, but it just seems handy. Mainly, because my dad just snips live wires, because he couldn't be bother to walk to our service panel. (PS. I'm from the EU so I don't exactly understand the US version of the system)
Most of the time, you're right, it's pretty easy. But it isn't always. If it happens when you turn on the device instead, that's just as easy.
But some stuff works on a timer. If it's something you've plugged into a timer switch, then you should be able to easily identify it when you test the timer when you first set it up. Everybody tests these things when they set them up, right? (Oops. I didn't at least once.)
Other situations can be more complex. When you have complicated electrical connections, such as a computer and peripherals that are wired to it, the fault could only occur when a specific thing is attempted. For example, a periodic check of the printer's ink supply could cause a momentary residual current to flow through the cable to the printer and out the wrong neutral power socket. If you keep your printer off most of the time, stuff only fails on rare intervals. If the periodic check happens every half hour, and most of the time you need to print something the printer's only on for less than 5 minutes, you may not even associate it with the fact the printer was on for a while.
There are other complex situations, I just gave the computer example because I work with them a lot so I'm familiar with it.
The most baffling RCCI problem I ever diagnosed was shortly after I got married. We moved into an apartment whose RCCI outlets had colored reset and test buttons as shown in the video. For the first few months, at seemingly random intervals, the RCCI outlets would trip. I was never around when it happened, and there wasn't anything plugged into them. Finally, my ex asked me if I knew how long it took the circuit breaker in the bathroom to reset. She'd been trying to test them for months, but they always took long enough to reset she gave up waiting. (To be clear, we didn't get divorced over that. We didn't even argue over it. Also, we're still friends. I'm sure I'd have encountered more baffling RCCI problems if I were an electrician, but I'm just a computer programmer.)