RE: Re: chinese x10 ? s10? modules

["Ian Lowe" <ianlowe@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

> You can always try it by stripping the wires and hold one in each
> hand, the only way to make sure you don't short them.....sort of.

Errr. Please don't!

The answer being - there's nothing special about a "neutral":
It's just an
arbitrary name - we call the "load" side of an appliance live,
and the
"sink" side of it neutral.

The switch in your wall has one wire in and one wire out - one end leads to
the supply, the other leads to the load (usually the light). If, instead of
a simple switch, you place an electronic device which can vary it's own
resistance from very low (to light the bulb) to very high (so that only a
few milliamps flows, enough to power the electronic device itself), then
you
have one of these micromodules.

It also means, however, that the switch doesn't do *quite* what you expect,
in that even while it's in the "off" state, the socket is still
live.

I guess with these "no neutral" devices you don't have
"on" and "off" so
much as "on" and "on a tiny wee bit".

Hope that helps.

Ian.