3 ms·

This is apparently a software function known as a circuit breaker, and has nothing to do with electrical current flow. Fuckin' HN headlines, I swear.

bluedays 7y ago
yeah I got a little excited about how I might fix the circuit breaker in my house.
- segfaultbuserr 7y ago
  > how I might fix the circuit breaker in my house. Don't be so disappointed, here's my tip for you. In electrical installations, every subcircuit should have its own RCD/GFCI circuit breakers installed, rather than relying a RCI/GFCI breaker on the higher hierarchy. Otherwise the circuit breakers are misconfigurated - failing to do so would make troubleshooting leakage current (read "tripping breakers") extremely difficult. But when it happens, there's a solution. I once fixed one at my home that always trips spontaneously, the secret is using a leakage current clamp meter. A RCD/GFCI circuit breaker trips when the leakage current is greater than its threshold to protect equipment and people. With a leakage clamp meter, it allows you to monitor the leakage current in real-time rather than hopelessly trying in the dark. You just clamp the meter across BOTH the live and neutral wire on the main breaker (if both wires carry the same current in the opposite directions, i.e. no leakage, net magnetic flux inside the sensor will be zero, so the meter reads 0 mA, and vice versa), turn off every subcircuit, and starts switching on different subcircuits one-by-one. If you see the leakage current substantially increases after you switched on a specific subcircuit, repeat the process by disconnecting all appliances from that subcircuit and connecting them one-by-one while observing the meter. Finally you'll find the smoking gun (if there's still significant leakage when nothing is connected, it means the wiring is at fault), mine was a light fixture with damaged insulation. A leakage current clamp costs $200-$300, Fluke's meter will cost you $600. However, you can get a good enough, low-accuracy leakage clamp from China on AliExpress for $50-$100, just make sure the product description mentions "leakage" (the laws of physics are the same for all current clamp meters, but most are not designed to sense sub-10 mA leakage current). In my experience, only a handful of electricians working with home wirings are aware of this diagnostic technique. I learned it from an application note of an industrial system.
spelunker 7y ago
Now let me tell you about bulkheads...
dtech 7y ago
It's called an analogy. It functions similarly to an electrical circuit breaker because it disables systems before things go fully haywire/bad, it helps devs understand the concept by using familiar things
- ew6082 7y ago
  It's bad naming practice and only adds confusion to search.
- hinkley 7y ago
  Although it behaves a lot more like a GFCI than a circuit breaker, but apparently nobody involved ever watched This Old House, or any other home improvement shows. I would like these throttling tools to behave in a different way, one that more closely resembles a circuit breaker. But some rat bastard has already used that name so now I don't know what to call it.
jp_sc 7y ago
Seeing where the link was pointing to (Shopify), you could have expected it. On the other hand, the same article from the Philips Engineering Blog... now that would be very confusing!
JensRex 7y ago
I'm an electrician. I was very confused for the first few paragraphs.
james_s_tayler 7y ago
It's a common pattern in software engineering to stop failures jumping from one area of a system to another. I don't get why you're mad about that. It functions analogous to the very thing it's named after.
hinkley 7y ago
Better to remain silent and be thought a fool... This term has been around for quite a while. I don't think it's a very apt term, but it's the one that was chosen, so whateryagonnado. Welcome to the 10,000.

bluedays 7y ago

yeah I got a little excited about how I might fix the circuit breaker in my house.

segfaultbuserr 7y ago
> how I might fix the circuit breaker in my house. Don't be so disappointed, here's my tip for you. In electrical installations, every subcircuit should have its own RCD/GFCI circuit breakers installed, rather than relying a RCI/GFCI breaker on the higher hierarchy. Otherwise the circuit breakers are misconfigurated - failing to do so would make troubleshooting leakage current (read "tripping breakers") extremely difficult. But when it happens, there's a solution. I once fixed one at my home that always trips spontaneously, the secret is using a leakage current clamp meter. A RCD/GFCI circuit breaker trips when the leakage current is greater than its threshold to protect equipment and people. With a leakage clamp meter, it allows you to monitor the leakage current in real-time rather than hopelessly trying in the dark. You just clamp the meter across BOTH the live and neutral wire on the main breaker (if both wires carry the same current in the opposite directions, i.e. no leakage, net magnetic flux inside the sensor will be zero, so the meter reads 0 mA, and vice versa), turn off every subcircuit, and starts switching on different subcircuits one-by-one. If you see the leakage current substantially increases after you switched on a specific subcircuit, repeat the process by disconnecting all appliances from that subcircuit and connecting them one-by-one while observing the meter. Finally you'll find the smoking gun (if there's still significant leakage when nothing is connected, it means the wiring is at fault), mine was a light fixture with damaged insulation. A leakage current clamp costs $200-$300, Fluke's meter will cost you $600. However, you can get a good enough, low-accuracy leakage clamp from China on AliExpress for $50-$100, just make sure the product description mentions "leakage" (the laws of physics are the same for all current clamp meters, but most are not designed to sense sub-10 mA leakage current). In my experience, only a handful of electricians working with home wirings are aware of this diagnostic technique. I learned it from an application note of an industrial system.

spelunker 7y ago

Now let me tell you about bulkheads...

dtech 7y ago

It's called an analogy. It functions similarly to an electrical circuit breaker because it disables systems before things go fully haywire/bad, it helps devs understand the concept by using familiar things

ew6082 7y ago
It's bad naming practice and only adds confusion to search.
hinkley 7y ago
Although it behaves a lot more like a GFCI than a circuit breaker, but apparently nobody involved ever watched This Old House, or any other home improvement shows. I would like these throttling tools to behave in a different way, one that more closely resembles a circuit breaker. But some rat bastard has already used that name so now I don't know what to call it.

jp_sc 7y ago

Seeing where the link was pointing to (Shopify), you could have expected it. On the other hand, the same article from the Philips Engineering Blog... now that would be very confusing!

JensRex 7y ago

I'm an electrician. I was very confused for the first few paragraphs.

james_s_tayler 7y ago

It's a common pattern in software engineering to stop failures jumping from one area of a system to another. I don't get why you're mad about that. It functions analogous to the very thing it's named after.

hinkley 7y ago

Better to remain silent and be thought a fool... This term has been around for quite a while. I don't think it's a very apt term, but it's the one that was chosen, so whateryagonnado. Welcome to the 10,000.