New Triton As2000X Power Shower Triping Breaker

Irish Steve

WikiHow wrote: »

cumulative earth leakage would be enough to trip the RCD, a shower would have some earth leakage and maybe another appliance or device as you say going at the same time with leakage would be causing it to trip.

Indeed. For completely different reasons, I've been looking at RCBO's for a different job, and thinking that there's a lot to be said for some of these new single width RCBO's that are coming on line now, in that if there's a fault on a circuit, they remove the hassle of losing all the RCD protected circuits, and make the wiring of the panel a lot simpler, as both line and neutral come back to the top of the RCBO, so no messing with threading the wires around the panel to get to the RCD neutral bus, and single bus for the supply.

Now if they'd put the Earth on the RCBO as well, that would make things SO much tidier to set up. Ahh dreams.

Sir Arthur Daley

Irish Steve wrote: »

Now if they'd put the Earth on the RCBO as well, that would make things SO much tidier to set up. Ahh dreams.

One could put a din rail earth terminal beside its RCBO.

Irish Steve

WikiHow wrote: »

One could put a din rail earth terminal beside its RCBO.

True, but that messes up the spacing on a consumer unit style panel and the beauty of the single width RCBO's is that they are much easier to set up in a panel, single bus bar, neutral already fitted to connect back to the bus bar, and nuisance trips are so much less intrusive than losing a whole chunk of panel. They should be much better for somewhere like a computer suite, which one circuit going out would not have anything like the effect of a RCD tripping.

Anyway, it's time to stop derailing this thread, I hope we get some proper feedback on the next phase, I think the electrician is going to have to be part of the story from here on for a while, the panel and RCD/RCBO relationship needs to be clarified before we can do much more on this.

Cogsy88

Irish Steve wrote: »

True, but that messes up the spacing on a consumer unit style panel and the beauty of the single width RCBO's is that they are much easier to set up in a panel, single bus bar, neutral already fitted to connect back to the bus bar, and nuisance trips are so much less intrusive than losing a whole chunk of panel. They should be much better for somewhere like a computer suite, which one circuit going out would not have anything like the effect of a RCD tripping.

Anyway, it's time to stop derailing this thread, I hope we get some proper feedback on the next phase, I think the electrician is going to have to be part of the story from here on for a while, the panel and RCD/RCBO relationship needs to be clarified before we can do much more on this.

Single module rcbo. How long have these bein around?

Irish Steve

Cogsy88 wrote: »

Single module rcbo. How long have these bein around?

Not sure, they're turning up on places like E-Bay, and are being advertised in various other places.

Link to a UK site http://www.schneider-electric.co.uk/sites/uk/en/products-services/electrical-distribution/products-offer/low-voltage-protection/combined-mccb-rccb/rcbo.page gives some specs and the like, I can see a time when all new panels will only have these instead of MCB's, make life so much easier. The only thing I'm not sure of is if they are approved here or not yet. There's a version for SquareD panels already available, was looking at one last week, but they only fit their panels, and don't use the "standard" bus bar system that would make these so much easier.

Cogsy88

^^^ Very nice Life's about to get so much easier. Bound to be pricey though.

Irish Steve

Cogsy88 wrote: »

^^^ Very nice Life's about to get so much easier. Bound to be pricey though.

If E-Bay prices are anything to go by, they are not, I've been pleasantly surprised at how low some of them are, the only caveat being making sure that they are not spurious Far Eastern clones.

Comer1

I'm still wondering why would there be current going back through the earth when that capacitor is in place?

Bruthal

Comer1 wrote: »

I'm still wondering why would there be current going back through the earth when that capacitor is in place?

What makes you think there is? If rcbo is connected with one line through the rcd, then and perfectly functioning shower will trip the rcd.

The rcbo needs to be correctly connected before anything else is done.

That may not necessarily fix the original problem, but it may go and long way towards locating it. But first get rcbo connected correctly.

Tuco88

I would still carry out an insulation resistance test on the cable to rule it out 100%, From the post its looks like the Electrician didn't and also test the rcd at .5 X I and the rated current to see how it responds to tick it off also, then correct the RCBO.


Those single mod RCBOs are a gift alright, but I don't think they break the neutral not the ABB ones at least we couldn't use them.

tomdempsey200

Tuco88 wrote: »

Those single mod RCBOs are a gift alright, but I don't think they break the neutral not the ABB ones at least we couldn't use them.

i think some do/some don't although I haven't used them
I think there was a link here to a single mod DP recently

afaik the wiring rules will allow the use of single pole rcbos as the supply is TN....

Tuco88

That is handy if you can get them double pole. We were unable to source the ABB ones in DP at the time, they had to be DP for isolation reasons. Instead we had to place in a larger board which was a bit of a pain.

If anybody knows a link or the brand that supplies the DP unit I would be very grateful, could come in very handy in the future.

tomdempsey200

I'm not so sure now

I found the recent thread but they're sp

Sir Arthur Daley

Comer1 wrote: »

I'm still wondering why would there be current going back through the earth when that capacitor is in place?

How are you determining this current?

tomdempsey200

WikiHow wrote: »

How are you determining this current?

there's special infrared glasses you can get so you can see it moving

he's prob using those

Comer1

tomdempsey200 wrote: »

there's special infrared glasses you can get so you can see it moving

he's prob using those

I licked it!

Why would you ask that?! I assume it was a multimeter.

Sir Arthur Daley

Comer1 wrote: »

I assume it was a multimeter.

Are you mixing up current with voltage maybe?

Cogsy88

I think he's measuring between phase and earth and because his meter says 230 he's assuming the earth is live.

Comer1

Cogsy88 wrote: »

I think he's measuring between phase and earth and because his meter says 230 he's assuming the earth is live.

I'm sure I've communicated it wrong due to my lack of knowledge.

Comer1

Well it seems to be sorted...thanks to the help from this thread. When I told the electrician that I tripped the RCD and even though the rcbo had not tripped, the shower had no power, he realised his mistake (as was pointed out here).

Now that the shower is on its own RCBO completely independent of the RCD, its working perfectly so far.

An absolute huge thanks for the help, and now I'm going for a very long shower.

tomdempsey200

Comer1 wrote: »

Well it seems to be sorted...thanks to the help from this thread. When I told the electrician that I tripped the RCD and even though the rcbo had not tripped, the shower had no power, he realised his mistake (as was pointed out here).

the mistake isn't the problem.

it's rushing off without testing and leaving the mistake that's the problem

checking and testing is a safeguard against human error

Sir Arthur Daley

tomdempsey200 wrote: »

it's rushing off without testing and leaving the mistake that's the problem

I would question if he/she were an electrician.