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Comment by gouranga | Hacker News Reader

I charge my devices overnight.

I have a smoke alarm installed in the same room, an RCD on the socket and they sit on a solid granite surface!

A few years ago I used to race radio controlled cars - the cells on them taught me a few lessons about how damn dangerous chemical cells are.

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For the Americans an RCD is the same thing as a GFCI, it's also called an ALCI in some places.

And still all three acronyms are totally meaningless to me.

Residual-current device: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Residual-current_device

I'd think an arc interrupter would be better.

You need both to prevent fire and accidental shock. Fortunately, you can install both at the same time for all of your receptacles by using GFCI+AFCI circuit breakers. Unfortunately, they are expensive.

All true, and also: GFCI breakers will not substitute for the dual breakers used in many panel boxes, they are too big. And, use of GFCI breakers is not compatible with three-wire circuits used in many locales in the US, at least. (What I mean is, two hot wires of opposite polarity sharing a common grounded conductor, allowing to run two circuits over three wires.)

Surprisingly difficult to find an arc interrupter in the UK. I found a link [0] which might shed some light on that; essentially the characteristics/problems of a 240v grounded system are different to a 110v, predominantly 2-pin system.

[0] http://www.theiet.org/forums/forum/messageview.cfm?catid=205...

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