xander wrote:Dichotomy wrote:I do not believe we should ever limit ourselves to colloquial language when the technical term is readily available.
Under many circumstances, I would agree, however I think that the fact that a bunch of people who seem to know the technical jargon cannot agree on what we should call the thing. From a lay perspective, when a circuit gets "overloaded" (i.e. too many devices are plugged into one outlet, it is short circuited by a puddle of water, or whatever) a "circuit breaker" in the "breaker box" cuts the power.
Funnily, that functionality is already in the game. When the power draw is too high, the generator shuts down.
This is also something that can not easily be put in a switch, because then you'd have to configure each switch for exactly how much power is allowed to go through that switch. You'd have to say "this switch has a 16 amp fuse, that one a 32 amp one". This would be quite a lot of micro management, that would still not completely save you from drawing too much power from the generator and shutting it down. This type of device will not protect your workers or inmates from being electrocuted to death if the power draw through them is not enough to trip the device.
Earth leakage circuit breaker (old) and Residual current circuit breaker (modern) detect when power doesn't go through the wires any more, but directly to the earth (optionally through a person). This is not a fuse.
They do not protect against short-circuits!
They do not stop you from overloading your generator!
They can easily be build into every switch so that it switches off the part that causes the problem.
Since these two groups of devices have fundamentally different roles, they would have to be implemented as separate functions. Both could be implemented in a switch. One would just work, the other would need a maximum current configuration screen.