Cautions Against Mis-Wiring of GFCI Outlets

 Wonder why GFCI outlets by Eaton and Leviton are packaged and labeled differently. Find this familiar and invariant  adhesive tape over the Load terminals of a Leviton GFCI. 

These instructions inside the Eaton outlet packaging are unhelpful to understanding the intended wiring arrangement. 

This is the Leviton GFCI powering a lamp, with correct wiring and normal function. The fairly-visible square green LED is redundant indication of the normal function.

"American" brands Leviton and Eaton share a deficiency that gravity must be turned to advantage to engage wires in floating grips. Better "Chinese" volunteered design has no-fail wire insertion through guide holes.

Eaton outlets have no instructions at all. 

Commonsense in the following rules argues against need of instructions: 

All GFCI outlets have these functional features:

• The outlet will not function at all if miswiring has the (single) hot lead attached to LOAD side instead of LINE. The reset button then does nothing. There are no LED indications.
• Upon trip, the outlet and all outlets daisy-chained from LOAD terminals are dead.
• Outlets daisy-chained from LEAD terminals are immune to GFCI trip, not protected. Perhaps half of circumstances are with want of this.  A GFCI outlet may be in a long daisy chain, not visible or even imagined, at a scene of frustration. It is bad practice if a device failure is caused by another device. Let every needed GFCI outlet be independent. 
• Another half of GFCI wiring circumstances has one GFCI protecting very-nearby other non-GFCI outlets, out of foolish economy, passing from GFCI LEAD terminals.

Yet, not-thoughtful installations where daisy chains branch loads to include lights, fans, dimmers, and more, may be dysfunctional, perhaps completely denying GFCI service..

For functionality, of all brands, I prefer Eaton.

Eaton is unique in having a bright red LED illumination at an edge of the RESET button. A small red LED is said to immuminate with device failure. For all other brands the small LED in green denotes proper service. The Eaton illuminations are more thoughtful.

Trip-Tested Eaton

Corner, tiny green indications of correct function are kind of silly. They are easily obscured by a cord plug.

Yellow tape over LOAD terminals does make sense. Daisy-chained outlets will by preference be strung from GFCI LEAD terminals. A string continuing via LOAD terminals does not miss protection by the GFCI outlet, the implication of the warning tape.

While all outlets now sold in USA are made in China, we will have no loyalty to USA brands Eaton and Leviton, then open-minded to all other brands imported from China. We expect to pay no premium for a "USA" brand not made in USA. At May, 2025, these other well-made brands are found at Amazon: Amazon Basics, ELEGRP, XIMAOESE and GreenCycle, cutting by half, historic prices of about twenty dollars per outlet. Tarriffs have no USA manufacturing to protect against global manufacturing cost difference arbitrage, a corrupt practice hurtful to workers. I have bought one each of all other brands, at Amazon, and find inadequate instruction against "miswiring" for all.   XIMAOESE and GreenCycle are exceptional in including the cautionary yellow tape of Leviton, now fully guarding against additional outlet connections daisy-chained through the LOAD terminals. At GreenCycle, I lose patience with all Chinese direct-sale offerings at Amazon. Be angry that market-flooding by China acts to destroy USA device brands, where we lose control of features. Be more angry that for the past fifty years, tax policy encouraged USA brands of all kinds, to end USA production.

The GreenCycle Ground terminal requires bending around the screw, a now-ancient and hated feature of outlets. Want straight insertion and space for bonding more than one ground wire. With GreenCycle, the green LED is on even after test-tripping. Want only red LEDs, indicating a tripped condition.

All GFCI outlets observed, when viewed as smiley faces, have ground terminals at the bottom. Since it matters very much to know which set of power terminals is Line for Hot connection, and backsides are hard to read, there must be consistency that Line is the upper set, as with current China production for both Eaton and Leviton. Instead there is absolute inconsistency. All knock-off brands made in China for direct sale as with Amazon, have Line terminals as the lower set. This is absurd and unacceptable. Buyers will presume that found wires undisturbed will accept a replacement outlet.

Motion-Sensing Outside Lights

Controlling a security light to come on only when needed is a painless way to add an increment of energy responsibility and independence. 

I have had this very satisfactory lighting arrangement at the front of my house, since May, 2014. Above the house number see a Atlas Guardian Pro MLGS180 light and motion sensor that controls lights along with a SPDT wall switch inside, just below in my living room. I call single pole double throw for the switch, and bought one, wrong color and odd. An ordinary 2-way switch is what you want; same thing. The 2-way switch with the Guardian sensor, allows forced-on operation, whether or not motion is sensed, in darkness. Want a sensor with options. 

Here is my Atlas Guardian Pro MLGS180W with effective simple mounting upon a luminaire ceiling mount selected from a bin of  Portland reclaimed parts store Hippo Hardware. I had to enlarge the post hole with a file. The still photo missed the periodic, pretty red blink warning of motion sensed. The black slider switch on sensor bottom face has on-hold choices of 10 minutes, 5 minutes 1 minute and TEST. A  sensitivity control RANGE, matters, and a medium setting works best for me.

Please know, Atlas has discontinued this product. Why, I want to know. And, I must now find an equivalent product for mention here.







I am served by Pacific Northwest electrical wholesaler, Platt . Find that my Atlas MLGS180W is still available at Platt, for hefty $50.83. A competing product with same features or better is this:
Desa SL-5316-WH 500W DualBrite Sensor , $21.78.
What has happened? The Atlas product was imported from China, not somehow made more expensively or better. Was it killed by too-aggressive mark-up?

At the Platt website, I am surprised to find this statement of very excellent Customer Service hours:
Call For Availability
800-257-5288
4a-midnight (pst) 7 Days
Platt has excellent brick and mortar service of the USA western states, and aspires by excellence, to online sales and service, nationwide. A knowledgeable, nice, real person in Beaverton, Oregon headquarters answers, quickly.

At Fall, 2018, I find that Platt still has an inventory of Atlas sensors now-discontinued. The preferred offering is tiny SMS 500, by RAB Lighting , 

This illustration is from a PDF Instruction Manual .

 I needed two, purchased at hefty $58.58 each, in-store. 

Two, to control a string of three lights at the edge of my garage and back entry door. Either, activated by darkness and motion for a set interval, will power the string.

I knew to bench-test this before commitment to on-house installation, and was dismayed. Each sensor goes into a self-test mode every time its source power is interrupted, to be confused with other test variables. 









Self-Test Mode:
The sensor has a 3 minute Test Period which allows it to be aimed and walk tested day or night.
• For the first 30 seconds, the lights will be turned on. During this time, test that all fixtures and lamps function properly.
• For the next 3 minutes, the sensor will keep lights on for 5 seconds each time it detects movement in its Detection Zone. The sensor will change to Automatic Mode after the 3 minute Test Period.
• If another 3 minute Test Period is desired, turn the power off for at least 10 seconds and back on again.

Again, this was maddening as complication of my bench test. Furthermore, I could not see this as anything but confusion for future home occupants who might unintentionally switch off the source power, then unaware of the now-needless invitation to get out a ladder and play with sensitivity and aim settings, at raising the switch. I had another set of sensors to test, and immediately preferred them for simplicity, lower cost and rock-solid behavior as-expected.

Choose:   Coolwest, found at ebay   Illustrate as soffit-mounted, with no visible wiring. Pull 18 ga leads for a sensor through a 1/4" soffit hole, hidden from view.

COOLWEST Security Automatic PIR Motion Sensor Adjustable Human Body Infrared Switch,Max 800W IP44

$16.28 with free shipping.

A negative in this decision is inability to command lights-on at night, independent of motion, with the wall switch. The ability of manual control is not missed where lights reliably come on and stay on with usual continued triggering by motion, at darkness.






The RAB sensor has a Manual Override of Automatic control:
Keep lights on by flipping the wall switch two times within 5 seconds. Sensor resets to auto mode at dawn.

For lights, choose these 1500 lumens 3000°K yoke-mount flood lights found at e-conolight:.

I choose these unhappily, by default. They are tiny and too glaring, but nothing better is found.

As with the PIR sensor, pass wiring simply through a soffit hole. Drill through the hole in the center of the yoke, just big enough to pass the hefty power lead into space above the  soffit.

The installations are at newly-added soffit vent openings, where wires can be easily pulled from a control panel in the attic, then twist-connected to the short, hefty lead installed by the manufacturer. See that light power cables feed through the yoke opening and a minimal drilled hole in the soffit. 

This is the sensor activated an night when the back door is opened, and one of two lights at the back olf the house.







Both lights at back of house:

Here see minimal and sufficient controls, visible at bottom of a sensor. Controls are Sensitivity and Time-On.

Lights come on at this proximity to the front of house and driveway.























In all of this I was somewhat perceived as a trouble-maker at professional-electricians-store Platt. It seems electricians do things differently. I defend myself with report that I had a constructive conversation with RAB Engineering, welcoming the sensor returns. 

Living increasingly as a political person, door-knocking and circulating petitions, I find that intelligent security lighting is rarely found. The average discovery is of dead incandescent fixtures or of CFL or LED mis-directed or wastefully hidden in a can. Let us see security lighting as important to safety of both occupants and welcome visitors. See. Don't stumble.

The Evolving Relationship Of Lighting Brightness, To Power Consumed

With informed good choices, abundant lighting is already a resource available to all, at little cost. Abundant task lighting is crucial to our safety and productivity. Lighting for decor, not wasteful, may be more abundant, interesting and beautiful.

Light, clean air, good potable water and internet broadband are no-cost essentials of a just society in which the potential of every person may be achieved. Of these essentials, "free" light is the nearest to hand, perhaps not corruptible through stupidity and greed. With lighting we are on the verge of considering power draw only as it relates to potential of generation off-grid. Reduced in cost by more than 90% vs. that from dumb incandescent bulbs, we may choose to use light more abundantly, for safety, productivity and better quality of life. The potential is deserving of a global campaign to do away with light bulbs, just as we did with awful CRT computer and television screens. Again, the solution is in durable, flat things. And, let those flat things for awhile include BR30 LED flood bulbs directed from cans, functionally the same as any LED disk downlight.

This post will evolve over several weeks. Please watch it grow. And, know conclusions have already been expressed here over the four or five years largely mis-spent since excellent LED disk downlights became available for home installation. LED lighting will improve global quality of life and productivity, while hugely contributing to saving of grid electrical power used for residential lighting. Only about 10% of the potential has been achieved so far in the USA. Ref: Adoption Report, USDOE, 2017 .

Here are discussions in this blog:

• Brightness Numbers
• LED Downlighting
• Luminance Definitions

Focus please on the word Brightness of the post title. Go with me to the linked Wikipedia article, and find disastrous confusion sowed by the US Federal Trade Commission in the matter of Lamps, the topic here:
The United States Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has assigned an unconventional meaning to brightness when applied to lamps. When appearing on light bulb packages, brightness means luminous flux, while in other contexts it means luminance. Luminous flux is the total amount of light coming from a source, such as a lighting device. Luminance, the original meaning of brightness, is the amount of light per solid angle coming from an area, such as the sky. The table below shows the standard ways of indicating the amount of light.

Today, dictionary.com has
lamp (noun)

1. any of various devices furnishing artificial light, as by electricity or gas.

There can not be a justification by FTC, to imagine and apply only light bulb point sources as lamps. And, of course an LED light bulb is not a point source. An LED bulb hemispherical lens glows to the side with task lighting efficiency of less than 30% of total lumens. About 70% of typical A-type LED bulb illumination is sent from a circuit board parallel with the base; a nasty and dishonest trick when upright in a table lamp or horizontal in a ceiling fixture. A large fraction of emitted light is lost in the thick diffuser. A wasteful device must not be promoted as other than decoration, without offer of purchase incentives.

A cheap and short-lived A-type LED bulb has sideways illumination like that of the old 100 watt incandescent, and is 40% brighter end-on. If used in a table lamp for reading, 40% of power is wasted. 

Here is proof from test stand comparisons .  At left "100 watt" incandescent bulb. At right EcoSmart ICES-003/B LED, 800 lumens, 10 watts, 3000°K. At full power. The EcoSmart is turned 90° to illuminate the screen with cast from glow of the lens hemisphere as it might in a table lamp or horizontal ceiling fixture. The EcoSmart side illumination is about 500 lumens, equal to that of a "100 watt bulb."

At left "100 watt" incandescent bulb. At right EcoSmart ICES-003/B LED, 10 watts, 3000°K. At full power. The EcoSmart is now straight-ahead to the screen and quite superior to a 100 watt bulb, the effect of 800 lumens, not the useful 500 lumens of a 100 watt bulb. Judge that the EcoSmart if placed upright in a table lamp or horizontal in a ceiling fixture is with usefulness ratio 500/800, about 40% energy waste.

We must go back to the correct usage of brightness as luminance, to inform our decisions, as we develop and select luminaires that ever-better, make light a cost-free resource to enrich human activity. Luminance is first a measure of the illumination to our eyes, of tasks at hand. Nearly as important, it is the test of glare as we gaze upon the luminaire. Glare as a nuisance or hazard, is not regulated and not listed in competition for purchases. Lights continually cheapened and glaring, discredit the switch to LEDs for energy conservation. Where best LED lights will serve essentially forever, we can afford that they be built without weak electronics, easy to look at.

Following the FTC mis-direction, we are taught that lumens count, luminous flux in all directions,  is the modern way to compare lighting choices.

Here is an example:
C/Net, Smart Home
Watts vs. lumens: How to choose the right LED light bulb 

Article by Alina Bradford, May 9, 2017

These comparisons are meaningful only for light in antique candle form, as point source illuminating a beam angle of about 320°. Achievable brightness of such old-fashioned bulbs actually can't exceed that of the well-known "100 watt bulb." Wiring that fed a 150 watt bulb was usually destroyed by heat. The table perhaps consciously under-values LED lighting, where LED tricked to look like point-source incandescent and CFL bulbs, has not been offered at more than about 15 watts. All LED luminaires of higher wattage are of other form, as directional flat plates, the natural display from diodes on circuit boards; and do not belong in this table. Disregard as ridiculous, "corn" LED bulbs at the high end of table wattage. Striped light thrown about a room by a corn bulb, is ugly.

About half of point-source light is fully wasted where the purpose is task illumination as in reading. The comparison prevails where something is sought to fill  A-Series light bulbs with their global confusion of sockets, in USA and other countries with 110 volt mains, E26 threaded. 

We have long had point-source lighting that is not dissipated as point-source, confusing a relationship of watts to potential task illumination. Extremely shiny back reflection within a light bulb does the job most simply, forming a downlight from a ceiling whether or not the bulb is recessed, or displayed upon a pendant with or without a decorative shroud. 

Again,  before LED lighting became practical, interim CFL flood or spot bulbs, muddied watts as a measure of brightness, where a mammoth point-source has lots of internal mis-direction and waste. Worst for waste with simple CFL bulbs, is common practice of setting point-source light in cans that hide more than half of the light output.


The wrong teaching is in failing to distinguish lumens count from directional light, most clearly understood where it might be uniform, flat OLED, from wastefully-thrown light of point source bulbs.

From a human perspective, the Sun is a uniformly-bright disk. Brightness within that disk sets the example of other luminance examples, in the table that follows. A luminance value 0.05 lumens/mm2 is evident as a luminaire-design target.

Hereafter let Luminance be a controlling factor in luminaire planning and design. 

Look at luminance numbers for some existing edge light LED examples:
Cooper SLD6: 0.064 lumens/ mm2
Conturrent 4": 0.074
Lithonia WF3: 0.228
Lithonia WF4: 0.124
EiKO 5": 0.059

Try imposing a uniform lens luminance limit of 0.05 lumens/ mm2.

Tabulate lumens and lens diameter at this limit:

Let there be greater lens luminance, to get about 500 lumens from a 4", 100 mm lens diameter.

These are candidate lumens targets for a range of lens and called size-of-light, in inch,  25 mm increments.Let suggestion of luminaire description by a "brightness number", instead be a series of round-number lens sizes. And, let those size numbers not be those of the lens rim outside diameter.

Please look at last, for discipline in luminaire offerings, those volunteered by China factories without global leadership, and by specifiers everywhere, for competition upon reasonable glare numbers. For greatest number of directional lumens with typically 120° beam angle, we will choose uniform-glare OLED, or edge light luminaires with proven effective 90° downward turn of light. 

Where edge light lumens might be proportional to strip diameter and circumference and luminance is then related to square of diameter, LED edge light strips will be intelligently related to square of diameter, rather than to diameter.

Efficacy based on task illumination will easily be with more than 90% reduction from energy cost with LEDs, vs. cost from A-type point source incandescent bulbs. Improvement will not be the 75% reduction imagined with A-type LED bulbs that look like A-type incandescents and fit in any old luminaire. If LED strip edge lights become the production standard, I hope the diode strips will have a salting of phosphor colors, to better resemble sunlight effects in human vision. Notice to a wished manufacturer: Better, with edge-light luminaires employing LEDs on flexible strips, choose RGB diode strips for full-spectrum, tunable white.

This just in 2-7-2018:

Offered at Gordon Electric . But, I can't find these except through email links, among the vast forest of distributor offerings.

Do can light retrofits compete with an edge light surface mount simple future?
All of these Sylvania offerings are with circles of uniform brightness, here presumed 4" diameter.

All of these are too-aggressive cramming of light, unmindful of hurtful glare. Can lights must not be used for more than "65 watt incandescent equivalent." I bet that 16-watt offering runs quite hot, and I won't buy to try. For residential installation, there is no virtue in such large light concentration. In recessing deep within a can to not see the glare, expect that about 20% of the light energy is thrown away.

In support of this post, and for decision upon lighting selection in my own kitchen remodel, I have purchased several candidate LED edge lights. I will look for useful consistencies in arrangements and sizing, not expecting to find exactly what I want. I want  pretty 500 lumens LED edge lights with 4". 100 mm active lens area. Here is that remodel scheme:

Now in March, 2018, I have planned to use fewer lights of larger size. I thought to use available Nicor DLS10, but they are configured only for individual constant current drivers. Choose edge lights that, like all tape LED lighting, are configured for a constant voltage driver. To employ a common driver, luminaires must connect in parallel. I believe that light engine circuit boards are generally wired to want a fixed current.

My kitchen remodel has been lighted so far with only the two lights of Circuit 1, an out of the box Nicor DLS10, and a still-excellent first-generation 6" Glimpse bought in 2012 as Home Depot T91. It is in further circuits that I want innovation, allowed as trial, in my own home.

Switching as follows is fully tested, operating only Circuit 1 with 4-way control.

On a second try, I purchased this as a common driver, with constant voltage output, dimmable:
Mean Well PWM-90-36   Report, with installation instructions.
Buy at DigiKey 

From the instructions, take the wiring illustration.

Now choose the needed dimmer, with assistance at Lutron.
Buy at Bees Lighting .

Lutron DVSTV Instructions 


With this, observe Nicor DLS10 on a remote constant-voltage driver. Draw power through a Kill-A-Watt meter and observe exceptional brightness at dimmer full power.The DLS10 should draw 15 watts without dimming. Instead at full power it draws 28 watts. I think this proves the DLS10, and probably all like luminaires with a coupled external driver, are the feared constant current device, to have shortened life or simply to be fried, on a constant voltage driver. Sellers of drivers have been through this before. I am lucky that my DLS10 may have survived unharmed. I have my answer at last for the driver seller. Already I had lost interest in LED downlight luminaires on circuit boards, because of manufacturer inattention to glare and to dead-bug litter. There is not one such circuit board luminaire on offer now, that I would happily offer to a customer. There is certainly not a winner, flying off store shelves.

I want to move on to our future with LED edge-light luminaires, surface mounted without demand of large ceiling holes, new junction boxes or new can light bodies. I hope I can come up real soon, with means to fill dark spaces in my new kitchen ceiling.


At September 2018, I must at last complete my remodel kitchen lighting. Here is the illumination with only Circuit 1 lights:

Here is my cut-in plan for fifteen more lights generally 500 lumens each, Commercial Electric 74203 . It will come out brighter than 300 Lux. I believe we want always a bit more light as it becomes affordable. Lighting placement in a completed room involves measurements relative to any convenient structure, planned with computer graphics.