leakage current

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The electron man said:
Hey guys new electrician here been in the trade for 2 years ,what is leakage current and what causes it happen ?
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Wire insulation is a good insulator and is a resistor but nothing is perfect. A capacitor let's through some leakage current. UL has leakage current maximums in their specs for various listing. HVAC equipment has had 10ma of leakage allowed and that's why there are issues with putting them on class A gfcis. There is also a way to make it look like leakage current by making it look like the current is leaking to ground when it's just going into electronics that have capacitors or VFDs that make the power "Dirty" and imbalanced.
 
letgomywago said:
Wire insulation is a good insulator and is a resistor but nothing is perfect. A capacitor let's through some leakage current. UL has leakage current maximums in their specs for various listing. HVAC equipment has had 10ma of leakage allowed and that's why there are issues with putting them on class A gfcis. There is also a way to make it look like leakage current by making it look like the current is leaking to ground when it's just going into electronics that have capacitors or VFDs that make the power "Dirty" and imbalanced.
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That is a brand new requirement and not sure if that is even in effect yet. Prior to the NEC starting to require GFCI protection for hardwired equipment, there were no leakage rules in the product standards for hard wired equipment. The position was that the code required EGC eliminated any possible safety hazard from leakage current.
 
We used to do some work for Franklin Smelting in Philly. They were a copper refiner. Talk about leakage current, the dust in that place was so conductive that it would drain the batteries in the equipment overnight.
 
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