Cob: electrical

[Shannon C. Dealy]

On Wed, 10 Sep 2003, Mary Hooper wrote:

> My honey was in electronics/electrical in the navy and taught same in
> community college. He will be competent to do wiring.
> Now, he's been out of the field for a few years and says he does not
> recognize the term phantom loads on GFIs. He says either it's a load or not.
> Will someone be good enough to explain this wrinkle? Thanks for your
> perspectives on the topic..... :-) Mary

We're wandering a little off topic here, but:

  Phantom Load - this is power consumed by a device that is "off", but
      continues to consume electricity, examples include: any device
      with a wireless remote control or clock that displays and updates
      while it is "off", computers, microwaves, and many other devices.
      Things that (usually) aren't phantom loads would typically be
      washing machines, dryers, and dishwashers.  Many of the "phantom
      load" devices go into a reduced power state when they are off
      (usually in the USA these will have an "EnergyStar" label on them),
      but some of them draw the same amount of power whether they are on
      or off (satellite dish receivers for the mini-dish systems like
      DirectTV and Dish network are like this).  To eliminate the wasted
      power of these devices it is necessary to either unplug them or
      put them on an outlet strip with a switch that you can use to
      cut power to them.

  GFI - Ground Fault Interrupter - this is a special type of circuit
      breaker, usually built into the outlet (rather than your breaker
      panel) which is designed to break the circuit if some of the current
      starts to flow to ground.  These are usually required in bathrooms
      outside outlets, and other areas where a person is likely to get a
      shock (or killed) from coming into contact with water while using an
      electrical appliance.  Usually one GFI outlet can be used to
      protect several other outlets by chaining them off of the GFI
      outlet.

Shannon C. Dealy      |               DeaTech Research Inc.
dealy at deatech.com     |          - Custom Software Development -
                      |    Embedded Systems, Real-time, Device Drivers
Phone: (800) 467-5820 | Networking, Scientific & Engineering Applications
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