In article ,
Dave Osborne writes:
The Medway Handyman wrote:
Hi

Could someone clarify the difference between an RCD & a RCCD or is it just
different terminology?


There are various British and European Standards for the design of
electrical control gear. One of them (don't ask me which, I can't
remember) in about 1980 (possibly earlier - don't quote me) defined the
term RCD:-

RCD is an umbrella term to cover all Residual Current Devices.

It came about due to a campaign by Which? and That's Life!
This was the point where RCDs became consumer products, and
every manufacturer and IEE was calling them something different,
leading to much consumer confusion and avoidance of the
products. Which? and That's Life! pressed the industry to
use one common name - RCD (which probably wasn't the best choice
but that's not important) - and the industry fell into line.

RCCB was one of the old names -- sort of hung on as some other
EU countries adopted it (even though it had no direct local
language meaning).

RCDs are sub-divided into RCCBs and RCBOs.

So, an RCCB is a Residual Current Circuit Breaker.

and an RCBO is a Residual current Current Breaker with Over-current
protection.

However, at that time, when the contracting industry and the IEE were
pushing the use of RCDs in domestic environments, there was very little
call for RCBOs (which hitherto were mainly used in factories).

RCBO's didn't appear until later -- until RCD's themselves
could be made small enough to make them worth combining with
an MCB, around 1990 from memory. They were too pricey for
domestic use at that point though.

--
Andrew Gabriel
[email address is not usable -- followup in the newsgroup]