Those Dashed Electrical Acronyms

[Crossy]

OK, after several posters whinging that they don’t understand all the TLAs (Three Letter Acronyms) being used in the electrical posts here is a list of the more common ones. If you have one that’s not on the list please post it here and I'll edit the OP.

General

DB – Distribution Board. The box where your electrical connection devices live.

CU – Consumer Unit, British designation for your Distribution Board.

RTFM - Read The Flipping Manual (tempered for family viewing )

MSB. Main Switch Board.

DSB Distribution Switch Board. This board is supplied by submain conductors from the main switchboard.

ME Main Earth. The wire from the earth bar in the switchboard to the earth electrode.

PE Protective Earth. The earth wire to the earth terminal of socket outlets and electrical equipment that is required to be earthed. The earth wire to a DB from an MSB.

Protection Devices

RCD - Residual Current Device

ELCB – Earth Leakage Circuit Breaker

RCCB – Residual Current Circuit Breaker

GFI – Ground Fault Interrupter

GFCI – Ground Fault Circuit Interrupter.

All the above are effectively the same device and come under the blanket designation of RCD. They monitor the difference in current in the Live (L) and Neutral (N) wires, if the difference exceeds the trip value of the RCD (10mA, 30mA, 100mA) the device assumes that current is going where it is not wanted (through you) and opens the circuit. An RCD does not provide any overload protection.

MCB – Miniature Circuit Breaker, put simply a resettable fuse. It has the same uses as a fuse and provides overload protection.

RCBO – Residual Current Breaker with Overload. Combines the functions of an RCD and MCB in a single device.

Network Architectures

TT

TN-S

TN-C

TN-C-S

IT

Not really abbreviations at all, have a look here http://en.wikipedia....Earthing_system for explanations of how they are connected.

MEN – Multiple Earthed Neutral, a variation of TN-C-S where the Neutral is connected to ground at many points along its length.

PME – Protective Multiple Earthing, to all intents and purposes this is the same as MEN.

Over to you chaps to add some more.

[prefabs]

RLF for when you really goofed up?

[Satcommlee]

BER - Beyond economical repair

LOL - The customer response

[necronx99]

I don't whinge per se', I make insightful witty comments.

I may whine a bit, but usually only after wining a bit.

[Crossy]

One I forgot.

RTFM - Read The Flipping Manual (tempered for family viewing )

OP edited

[electau]

You can include the following.

MSB. Main Switch Board.

DSB or DB. Distribution Switch Board or Distribution Board. This board is supplied by submain conductors from the main switchboard.

ME. Main Earth. The wire from the earth bar in the switchboard to the earth electrode.

PE . Protective Earth. The earth wire to the earth terminal of socket outlets and electrical equipment that is required to be earthed. The earth wire to a DB from an MSB.

[Payboy]

Don't forget <deleted> - always useful after the installation is done.

[necronx99]

Don't forget <deleted> - always useful after the installation is done.

preceded by BZZ..PHSST