GFCi Double Insulation Hot Colour Codes

It may be worth looking at alternative terminology that is used throughout the world for various things. Although the site may be designed for the USA, many users will not be from the US & so alternate terms may be important. US readers may also have cause to read literature from the rest of the world or work on imported equipment.

Ground Fault Current Interruptor (GFCI) devices are not known by that name throughout the entire world. For example, in Australia they are now commonly called a "Safety Switch" & units are commonly designated RCD (Residual Current Device) with combined miniature circuit breaker & RCD units designated RCB0 or RCD/MCB. They were previously called Earth Leakage Circuit Breakers (ELCB) or just Core Balance protection. I have never seen the designation GFCi used here at all.

Another point is that Double Insulated items may have a conductive outer casing (unearthed because of the Double Insulation status) with just an adequate insulating barrier between the conductors & the casing. This may just be an air gap. This leads to the silly situation where a Double Insulated item such as an amplifier can have a metal casing become live when a wire is pinched when putting it back together. I saw this more than once as an electrician when doing electrical safety checks.

Much of the world also does not use the HOT designation but instead the terms Neutral & Active are used or the Hot wire referred to as Live.

Another point of confusion can be wiring colour codes. Throughout much of the world BLACK is the NEUTRAL colour not a live conductor & a WHITE conductor may be a ACTIVE, LIVE or HOT wire.

For single phase circuits the newer standard in may areas is Blue for Neutral, Brown for Active & Green / Yellow for earth with the older colour code being Red for Active, Black for Neutral & Green or Green/Yellow for Earth.

Regards,
Brian.

 

Brain,

Thanks for your input.

Yes we are interested in international appeal of "Lessons in Electricity"

Here is the new verbiage for GFCIs:

Such devices are called Ground Fault Current Interruptors, or GFCIs for short. Outside North America, the GFCI is variously known as a safety switch, a residual current device (RCD), an RCBO or RCD/MCB if combined with a miniature circuit breaker, or earth leakage circuit breaker (ELCB).

If there is other terminology out there for this device, let me know.

The original text at :
http://www.allaboutcircuits.com/vol_1/chpt_3/8.html

has been changed in the master copy at ibiblio.org . Unrelated, I have added a couple of pagraphs on "arc fault breakers" after the paragraph on GFCIs.




I am looking at putting a wiring color code table in the Refrence volume. I am plan to change the title of the "Resistor Color Code" section to "Color codes" , putting the "Resistor Color Codes" into a subsection. Then adding a "Wiring Color Codes" subsection.

I hope to report back in a day or two when the Reference volume is updated

.

 

At ibiblio, Volume 5, chapter 2 title "Resistor color codes" has been changed to "Color codes", and a "Wiring color codes" section added after the "Resistor color codes" section which used to be the whole chapter. There is a Bibliography section at the end of chapter., which shows where I got some of the data. This chapter now contains a <proofread> tag, meaning we are looking for proofreading help on the new section. "Resistor color codes" should still be OK.

 

For some reason the bibliography references haven't copied over from ibiblio. They are as follows:

1. [PCk]Paul Cook, “Harmonised colours and alphanumeric marking”, IEE Wiring Matters, Spring 2004 at http://www.iee.org/Publish/WireRegs/IEE_Harmonized_colours.pdf

2. [JWi]John Wiles, “Photovoltaic Power Systems and the National Electrical Code: Suggested Practices”, Southwest Technology Development Institute, New Mexico State University, March 2001 at http://www.re.sandia.gov/en/ti/tu/Copy of NEC2000.pdf

I'll do a proofread through this week and get back with comments.

Dave

 

Hmm not sure why the bibliography didn't copy over - I'll look into this.

 

Hmm not sure why the bibliography didn't copy over - I'll look into this.

Cheers Rob, everything else on the page has copied over fine.

Dave

 

Now that you are talking about Bibliography, a few words,

Some chapters in AC (transformers, acmotors, acmeters) and Semi (theory and diodes) have a bibliography at the end of the chapter. This was introduced after I worked out how do a chapter bibliography, as opposed to a combined bibliography for all chapters at the end of the chapters. I plan to continue this practice of the bibliography at the end of the chapter..

DC has a bibliography at the end of the chapters before the Appendicies. This is left over from before I learned to do the chapter bibliography. I would recommend that you do nothing with that one in DC. At some point I will change it over to the chapter bibliography as used in AC, Semi, and Reference. If you need to have the DC biblography changed sooner rather than later, let me know.

 

Now that you are talking about Bibliography, a few words,

Some chapters in AC (transformers, acmotors, acmeters) and Semi (theory and diodes) have a bibliography at the end of the chapter. This was introduced after I worked out how do a chapter bibliography, as opposed to a combined bibliography for all chapters at the end of the chapters. I plan to continue this practice of the bibliography at the end of the chapter..

DC has a bibliography at the end of the chapters before the Appendicies. This is left over from before I learned to do the chapter bibliography. I would recommend that you do nothing with that one in DC. At some point I will change it over to the chapter bibliography as used in AC, Semi, and Reference. If you need to have the DC biblography changed sooner rather than later, let me know.

Thanks for making us aware of this Dennis, there is no immediate pressing concerned about getting the bibliographies copied over to AAC. In case you are not aware, AAC periodically, and automatically, updates itself from the ibiblio master version of the e-book; therefore (in theory) the updates you make to bibliographical references in the ibiblio version should copy over automatically to the AAC version - this is what I have raised with Rob.

Dave