Measuring load on a circuit breaker.

[Mark Lloyd]

[snip]

The electrons are going back and forth (AC) and never get anywhere. What's being sent is the kinetic energy carried by electrons.

Interestingly, power companies claim that electricity moves at the speed of light. This is impossible for electrons (nonzero mass).

[dreamchaser]

1. Wires are twisted to cancel out differential mode noise. Not all multiconductor phone cables are twisted pair. Always buy the ones that are labelled for multi-line, they are twisted. It really sucks to run a bunch of cable all around carrying 2 lines in it and find out you can hear the person on the other phone. Happened to me years ago.

1. Ground fault breakers have neutral connected to them and then neutral for circuit connects to the breaker along with the black wire on the hot terminal. Reason is that the ground fault breaker needs to monitor the hot to neutral voltage of the circuit and the most accurate way to do that is by monitoring the individual neutral wire for the circuit.

2. Power = Volts x amps (already stated). Other forms of the equation for inductive or capacitive loads and 3 phase.

1. Yes, all electrical wires have some amount, however small, of inductive and capacitive component. For electrical power, the inductance is only an issue with frequencies greater then 60 hz. I remember the days of wiring 400hz motor generators for computer systems. The wires had to be derated for the 400 hz and you had to run them in aluminum conduit because the inductive reactance of the 400 hz in a steel conduit would cause the conductors to heat up. Steel is a good shielding material and it keeps the fields within the conduit much better then aluminum, therefore the fields heating up the wire.

So, a great thread in some ways. Wow, all this theory and we still haven't figured out what the author's issue is.

[Dave Martindale]

No, it's because the GFI breaker wants to monitor the *current* in the white and black wires. It passes both of them through a small current transformer. If the output of the current transformer is nearly zero, then all the current flowing in the black wire is balanced by the current flowing (in the other direction) in the white wire, none of it is leaking somewhere else, and all is well. But if there's output from the current transformer, the black and white wire currents aren't equal, some of the current is thus finding another path to neutral or ground (or another hot wire, for that matter) and the GFI trips.

It can't work at all without monitoring white wire current, so the white wire has to pass through the breaker.

Dave

[Terry]

The original question was answered. The answer was no. They don't make such an instrument.

[Don Young]

Now I understand things better. The power company sends clean electrons thru the hot wire, they are used and get dirty in the house, and they go back to the power company thru the neutral to be cleaned up and sent back out again on the hot wire. I always wondered what that neutral wire was good for! 8>)

Don Young

[Harry]

And why have 2 hot wires, when those electrons could fit in one?

I checked that out. The other hot is just a signal wire for the [censored] evil mind reading and writing interfaces. The ones that make sure you vote for the "right" candidate.

You didn't actually read that, for it has never been written.