GFCI: Ground Fault Circuit Interrupter- Working, Types and Applications.

What is GFCI?

1. A GFCI (Ground Fault Circuit Interrupter) is an electromechanical device that automatically protects users from potentially fatal electrical shock or electrocution.

2. It is a special electrical outlet or receptacle that, as a safety measure, has a millisecond response time.

3. When it notices leakage currents or ground faults, it trips electrical circuits. Therefore, the GFCI detects when a person's body begins to experience a shock and shuts off the electricity before they suffer any injuries.

4. GFCIs are typically put whenever there is a chance that a person could come into touch with an electrical device while it is submerged in or near moisture, water, or water pipes.

5. Every room where water and electricity are likely to mix, including the kitchen, bathrooms, workshop, basement, garage, hot tubs, and outdoor outlets and fixtures, needs to have GFCIs installed.

6. Appliances and equipment with cord connections that are utilized outside or next to water benefit greatly from GFCIs.

How GFCI works?

1. In an outlet, electricity typically travels from hot to neutral. The GFCI operates by measuring the current leaving the hot side of the power supply and comparing it with the current returning to the neutral side.

2. If they are not equal, some of the current is accidentally passing through something, either water or a person.

3. The risk of electrical shock is decreased because the GFCI instantly shuts off electricity when it detects an imbalance in the current traveling from hot to neutral or from neutral to hot.

4. When an appliance is connected to a GFCI, the sensor inside the device detects the difference between the current flowing to and from the appliance.

5. A GFCI immediately cuts off all power by tripping a relay inside of it in a couple of hundredths of a second if the electricity going into the circuit differs from that returning by as little as 4 or 5 milliamps, considerably before the user hardly feels the shock.

6. After the issue has been resolved, GFCIs can be reset to turn the affected circuit back on.

7. The GFCI won't reset if the issue is still present and it still detects a discrepancy between the quantity of electricity flowing into the circuit and that flowing out.