If a full circuit is needed for electricity to flow what is the circuit when an appliance faults to ground?

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Power is generated at the powerstation, gets sent through cables to our house, through wires into my microwave. My microwave has a fault so the current goes down the earth wire into the ground but then where? Where is the ground connected backup to this circuit to complete the link and allow the current to flow??

In: Physics

7 Answers

Anonymous 0 Comments

theres 3 wires. Hot, neutral, and ground. the hot carries the electricity to the appliance, the neutral carries it back so it can flow, and the ground provides a place for the electricity to flow to in case of an overload. some electrical things will work with only a ground (starter motor in your car for example) so the energy flows through the device and dissipates into the “ground” (eg the frame rail of the car). That’s not typical of ac power tho. im not an electrician though so reddit correct me.

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