"Bob Watkinson" wrote in message
...

"Simon" wrote in message
...

This means, if there was a fault with your toaster where either the
live
or
the neutral was in contact with the metal casing, but the earth wire
was
not
connected, if you touch the metal casing, some current will be
conducted
through you to earth - the RCD will spot this missing current, and
trip,
hopefully saving your life :-)

Sparks...

Just curious. How safe is an RCD. If I stood bare footed on a damp
concrete
floor and grabbed the Live wire, would it still be a nasty shock but not
kill me, or does it switch off so quick that I would not even notice it.

Simon

Assuming the RCD is working correctly it would trip between 10 and 20
milliseconds while carrying 30mA (depending on type). To quick for you to
feel it I would think but as they say 'Don't try this at home folks'.



Thanks. Quite a useful thing to have then. Why don't they build one into the
electricity meter and then all homes would automatically have one? An even
better design would be to have a small light on the meter that came on when
the RCD trips, then you would be able to see to turn it back on again.

Simon