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Electricians: measuring an single appliance's earth leakage current?

09 Mar.,2024

To clarify what I personally meant about disconnecting the CPC/earth,
DO NOT
disconnect
ANY
of the
FIXED
wiring, unless you are a qualified electrician. As well as the safety implications, there are issues around insurance, and if it's rented accommodation, you'll be in breach of your tenancy agreement.

What I meant is this: if the plug on the equipment is a rewireable type, remove the plug and in conjunction with a Safeblock or Quicktest, connect a DMM in series with the earth. It should not be necessary to state, but I will anyway:
DO NOT
do any of this while connected at the wall outlet. Once you have everything connected as it should be, only then plug the Safeblock in.

If the equipment has a moulded plug and you don't want to cut it off, you'll have to make an adapter, such as a trailing socket with the plug removed that can be connected to a Safeblock.

If you wanted something you could keep and use in the future without a Safeblock, you could make something like this:

Plug on a flex to a
PLASTIC
adaptable box, stuffing gland into the box. Inside the box, break out the conductors and wire them individually in flex out of the box and back in, making a small loop. Use stuffing glands. Then connect to a flex out through a stuffer to a trailing socket. With this, you can measure with a clamp the individual currents on each conductor, and all the exposed wiring is double insulated, so is reasonably safe.
DO NOT
use a metal adaptable box, it will effectively become a shorted transformer winding.

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