Beko Tumble Dryer metal Drum not earthed

Andy From Sligo

not long had a Vented Beko Tumble dryer and couldnt understand why I was getting static electric shocks as I was pulling out the clothes after drying but now I think I find the cause.

Although the metal cabinet on the tumble dryer is earthed (I tested to the earth pin on the 13a plug with a continuity meter) the Metal drum is not earthed! :eek:

I had to be inquisitive and open up the cover at the back that covers the heater element and the back of the drum and can see why the drum is not earthed , they have not put a brass metal earthing strip from the outer metal to the tip of the drum and the drum spindle runs through a plastic bearing and sits on rubber wheels so without this brass earthing strip of metal which other manufactures like creda, hotpoint, indesit even white knight all fit this Beko has not got one fitted.

Its no wonder then I was getting a static shock as if the drum were earthed would the static electricity from the clothes drain down through the metal drum , then through the brass strip if it was there and then through earth?

Not only that, it might be a one in a million chance but what if a live wire came into contact with the metal drum? there are wires running along side of the drum. If the drum is not earthed then the drum would be live, not blow a fuse or trip a switch in the consumer box and then electrocute someone who touches the drum , a full 230v ac jolt.

I wonder how it made it to market without an earthed drum and how can that be safe appliance?

Here is what the earthing strap looks like on a Indesit or hotpoint model :




and here is where it is supposed to be on the back of the drum to earth it:

adrian92

Andy From Sligo wrote: »

not long had a Vented Beko Tumble dryer and couldnt understand why I was getting static electric shocks as I was pulling out the clothes after drying but now I think I find the cause.

Although the metal cabinet on the tumble dryer is earthed (I tested to the earth pin on the 13a plug with a continuity meter) the Metal drum is not earthed! :eek:

I had to be inquisitive and open up the cover at the back that covers the heater element and the back of the drum and can see why the drum is not earthed , they have not put a brass metal earthing strip from the outer metal to the tip of the drum and the drum spindle runs through a plastic bearing and sits on rubber wheels so without this brass earthing strip of metal which other manufactures like creda, hotpoint, indesit even white knight all fit this Beko has not got one fitted.

Its no wonder then I was getting a static shock as if the drum were earthed would the static electricity from the clothes drain down through the metal drum , then through the brass strip if it was there and then through earth?

Not only that, it might be a one in a million chance but what if a live wire came into contact with the metal drum? there are wires running along side of the drum. If the drum is not earthed then the drum would be live, not blow a fuse or trip a switch in the consumer box and then electrocute someone who touches the drum , a full 230v ac jolt.

I wonder how it made it to market without an earthed drum and how can that be safe appliance?

Here is what the earthing strap looks like on a Indesit or hotpoint model :




and here is where it is supposed to be on the back of the drum to earth it:

Very interesting.
Not something that I would have thought about.

I wonder is there any way that this could be put to Beko with a view for an explanation?

Andy From Sligo

adrian92 wrote: »

Very interesting.
Not something that I would have thought about.

I wonder is there any way that this could be put to Beko with a view for an explanation?

I have emailed Beko, or rather straight to the top to arcelik in Turkey who make the tumble dryers for beko , because i have contacted beko in the past on a different problem on one of their other dryers when it was not drying right and it was terrible customer support.

Arcelik have just said they have passed my issue about the drum not being earthed to another department and "thank you for my feedback" i also filled out a form on the irish and uk trading supports , it wouldnt hurt for a third party to look into this just to double check that its a safe practice and safe to use. I personally have always thought that if metal on an electrical appliance can be touched by a person who is standing on the ground must be earthed for safety , particularly in uk and Ireland electrical regulations.

If drum does become live and its not earthed, you particularly become the earth! The electric will travel from the drum through your arm , taking the path to the ground you are standing on (earth) passing many organs on its way, namely the heart being one!

If they get back saying its safe, fair enough. If they say its not safe then i suppose they will have to be recalled and this brass earth strap fitted to earth the drum . Either way i cannot sit back and do nothing now, knowing what i know for the sake of my safety and others safety who have purchased these dryers.

Tropicalaa

They prob wont engage with you. I've seen faulty new equipment before and it would have been better just.to notify trading standards or whatever

Andy From Sligo

Tropicalaa wrote: »

They prob wont engage with you. I've seen faulty new equipment before and it would have been better just.to notify trading standards or whatever

yeah your right. most probably just interested in selling them rather than the after sales service . They mostly are the same, its not just BEKO , and we all know most items dont get quality control like they used to years ago - due to costs cutting I suppose

Tropicalaa

There was another similar issue with metallic appliances supplied with a 2-wire lead, people were getting shocks off the casing.

Happened to me with a dvd player, had to stick a CPC onto the back of the case from the 13amp plug to cure it

Xertz

I know in older American dryers with enamelled drums you used to her super charged clothes coming out! They’d literally crackle with static.

It’s not something I’ve seen with modern dryers here. They all seem to have metal or stainless steel drums.

Surprising that it’s not earthed, particularly as it’s potentially live if something were to fall loose inside the machine itself.

Tropicalaa

Now that you mention it I recall a fault where the inner drum was catching the heating element below and damaging it due to failed bearings

So that would have been a potential issue with the inner drum not earthed

Andy From Sligo

Tropicalaa wrote: »

There was another similar issue with metallic appliances supplied with a 2-wire lead, people were getting shocks off the casing.

Happened to me with a dvd player, had to stick a CPC onto the back of the case from the 13amp plug to cure it

Yep, even the metal back of say the sky digibox is all metal , and that would just have a cord going into it with just live & neutral.

Xertz wrote: »

I know in older American dryers with enamelled drums you used to her super charged clothes coming out! They’d literally crackle with static.

It’s not something I’ve seen with modern dryers here. They all seem to have metal or stainless steel drums.

Surprising that it’s not earthed, particularly as it’s potentially live if something were to fall loose inside the machine itself.

Getting shocks like that when dragging the clothes out of this Beko dryer, you can hear it all crackling and the clothes stick together. Someone mentioned using fabric conditioner to reduce static, and we already do. then someone else recommended those anti static tumble dryer sheets , but I have read stories of them being sucked into the dryer and causing fires and they leave a residue behind , so put off using them.

Quite simply if they just added this earth strap to the drum then i reckon all the static that builds up in the drum as the clothes are drying would just drain all down to the earth pin in the plug.

Creda / hotpoint and others include this earthing strip and earth the drum most probably for this reason of static as well as for safety should the drum become live.

Above this Beko dryers drum are all the 230v live wires from the back of the machine to the front fascia electronics panel , yes they are attached to the cabinet with wire straps but they could still maybe if the clip fails, fall onto the drum and then the insulation wear away by schaffing or by heat and then live wire touch the drum. There is no plastic outer drums in these tumble dryers there is just this very large metal drum going around (and in this Beko , and maybe other beko models is not earthed!)

Tropicalaa wrote: »

Now that you mention it I recall a fault where the inner drum was catching the heating element below and damaging it due to failed bearings

So that would have been a potential issue with the inner drum not earthed

and yes, the elements at the back of the drum, one of those 230v ac wires could potentially come off and touch the un-earthed drum, the motor under the drum again with live wires going to it.


I think maybe with importing white goods from other countries (such as Turkey where the beko dryers are imported from , and maybe other Beko products like electric cookers and washing machines) maybe they havent got the same stringent earthing regulations on their appliances as the UK and Ireland have . I am just surprised if no-one else has picked up on this issue before , say domestic appliance engineers and passed their concerns on about it before now.

Bruthal

There is probably no real chance of the inner drum becoming live.

Someone mentioned it possibly rubbing on the heating element, but that also is unlikely to cause it. Even if it does erode through the outer element casing and into the core itself, it will trip the RCD straight away.

The wiring on the outside of the drum mentioned, is on the outside of the outer casing which surrounds the inner rotating drum.

I have seen washing machines, my own included, where the inner drum is not directly earthed and does not ring on continuity testers. It would not be much concern to me anyway. How many drum electrocutions have you heard of Vs car deaths?

Whether they should be earthed, is an interesting one, but my own opinion is that they should be safe either way.

It is likely that a phase contacting the drum will trip the RCD, even if the continuity tester is not showing continuity.

Tropicalaa

Bruthal wrote: »

There is probably no real chance of the inner drum becoming live.

Someone mentioned it possibly rubbing on the heating element, but that also is unlikely to cause it. Even if it does erode through the outer element casing and into the core itself, it will trip the RCD straight away.

The wiring on the outside of the drum mentioned, is on the outside of the outer casing which surrounds the inner rotating drum.

I have seen washing machines, my own included, where the inner drum is not directly earthed and does not ring on continuity testers. It would not be much concern to me anyway. How many drum electrocutions have you heard of Vs car deaths?

Ya it will trip alright now that I think of it

Xertz

Some sensor dryers also use the drum surfaces to gauge the water content of the clothes.

Miele, for example, has always used a sliding contact on the drum that connects to a sprung brush. That's used to actually pass a current through points on the surfaces of the drum and when the clothes contact them it's able to measure the water content. It's supposedly far more accurate as it uses a big % of the surface area of the drum as a sensor.

I know some other manufacturers may use similar approaches with the drum surfaces forming parts of a sensor system. Some have bars at the front of the drum just under the door / around the door and may use those in circuit with the drum surface or using a measurement between the bars.

I wonder actually if you were using the earth to discharge stray static, would it be enough to trigger old fashioned earth-operated ELCBs. I know in a lot of older Irish installations the device that's often labeled ELCB is, in reality, an RCD (based on the diagram on them) but in the UK it was certainly common enough to find the original ELCB designs on TT systems where the earth of the house was connected to a terminal and if there was a current flowing on that it tripped the power.

In Ireland it seems the term "ELCB" just got applied for a long time to far more modern devices. I have certainly seen 1980s boards with a label of ELCB on what is absolutely a 30mA RCD.

I'm guessing though you'd need a fairly significant current, beyond the level of static generated by a dryer, but plenty of switch mode power supplies can be a tad leaky. I know you'll get a fair old tickle off an Apple metal bodied laptop when it's on charge, especially if you touch it with your wrist if you're not using it with the full power cable with the earth connection.

I really noticed it on the continent when I used it without the full grounded Schuko plug.

Bruthal

Xertz wrote: »

I wonder actually if you were using the earth to discharge stray static, would it be enough to trigger old fashioned earth-operated ELCBs.

That wouldnt happen, as any static current discharged to the earth frame would not actually be going through the RCD.

ELCBs and RCDs are the same thing, although at least one poster on here will give us a lesson in the absolute literal meaning of abbreviations, possibly saying Residual Current Devices are any device which contains an RCD component.

But ELCB is a little inaccurate, as they can be tripped without earth leaked current. Residual current is a better description, as they are tripped by current difference more so than just current flowing to earth.

There were the voltage operated ones, which were a bit more troublesome than the current operated ones which superseded them.

Andy From Sligo

Bruthal wrote: »

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Xertz wrote: »

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Thanks, that's opened up the discussion quite a bit and yes I suppose the tumble dyers that use a brush attached to the drum senses when the clothes are dry could explain why they dont earth the drums on them models.

The beko's way of sensing the clothes are dry is not that way though.
They used to detect on the older Beko with 2 metal strips on the inside of the drum in a plastic carrier (low voltage involved) at the bottom just in front f the lint filter. and the Later Beko's now use a sensor underneath the lint filter to detect when the clothes in the drum are dry.

Xertz

@Bruthal - that's more or less what I was saying, older RCDs here which are actually RCDs are quite regularly mislabelled in Ireland as "ELCB" because that was the term that was in common use in the 1970s/80s.

In the UK you will actually sometimes encounter ELCBs that were operated by a voltage on the earth. They were pretty basic and quite crude devices that were certainly not likely to give an awful lot of personal protection in a house. They were probably more about fairly crude protection in an open fault on a TT system. Although, back in the day of lots of Class 1 appliances, it might have made some degree of sense and, in general, sockets provided earths both here and in the UK. Weird mixes of earthed and unearthed sockets disappeared in these islands a lot earlier than most of the world.

Tropicalaa

The current-operated RCD was called an ELCB previously

The 2 words were interchangeable, maybe it referred to an earlier type before that as well, I don't remember

Bruthal

Xertz wrote: »

@Bruthal - that's more or less what I was saying, older RCDs here which are actually RCDs are quite regularly mislabelled in Ireland as "ELCB" because that was the term that was in common use in the 1970s/80s.

Yes but ELCB was what RCDs were called here. Mainly because their intention was to protect people from shocks which almost certainly had to be to earth to offer such protection.

Although a shock required to trip one would realistically require phase to one hand and either the same hand or the other one on an earthed point. Its quite a nasty shock required to trip one.

Andy From Sligo

then you have RCCD now isnt it? - and ones with built in breakers RCCBO

Bruthal

Andy From Sligo wrote: »

then you have RCCD now isnt it? - and ones with built in breakers RCCBO

RCCB, and RCBO.

When anyone mentions an RCD i think of an actual RCD with no other devices.

Someone obsessed with phrases will say RCCB or RCBO, (with no other being correct) and an RCD can be either, I dont know, as I never got overly into abbreviations.

Myself being less perfect will just say RCD and RCBO.

Risteard81

Bruthal wrote: »

Someone obsessed with phrases will say RCCB or RCBO, (with no other being correct) and an RCD can be either

It is a fact that RCD (residual current device) is a generic term for ALL such devices, including RCCBs, RCBOs, SRCDs etc. If you look at the Definitions this will be abundantly clear.

RCCBs are commonly referred to as RCDs, but in actual fact they are no more an RCD than an RCBO is. (Hence references to "dedicated RCD" in places, which is usually achieved via an RCBO.)

Xertz

That's an old voltage operated ELCB: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0s7Wqivg0lw

Not sure that they were ever a feature here, but they still appear quite a bit in the UK in old installations. Basically they will only trip if there's a trickle to the earth. If you just get a shock and connect to the earth other than via the system, it won't detect it at all.

Trip range seems be be anything over 10 volts detected on the earth system.

Bruthal

Risteard81 wrote: »

It is a fact that RCD (residual current device) is a generic term for ALL such devices

Genius

adrian92

Bruthal wrote: »

There is probably no real chance of the inner drum becoming live.

Someone mentioned it possibly rubbing on the heating element, but that also is unlikely to cause it. Even if it does erode through the outer element casing and into the core itself, it will trip the RCD straight away.

The wiring on the outside of the drum mentioned, is on the outside of the outer casing which surrounds the inner rotating drum.

I have seen washing machines, my own included, where the inner drum is not directly earthed and does not ring on continuity testers. It would not be much concern to me anyway. How many drum electrocutions have you heard of Vs car deaths?

Whether they should be earthed, is an interesting one, but my own opinion is that they should be safe either way.

It is likely that a phase contacting the drum will trip the RCD, even if the continuity tester is not showing continuity.

I understand your point but I have a different view.
I don't think that it is good to say no need to earth (let the RCD deal with it, if it works)

There exists the reasonable possibility that the drum could become live. I think OP has valid point

(Nothing personal, just a different view)

Perhaps there are regulations in the EU concerning this?

I don't know

Bruthal

adrian92 wrote: »

There exists the reasonable possibility that the drum could become live. I think OP has valid point

I don't think it's uncommon for washing machine drums to be unearthed.

Andy From Sligo

Bruthal wrote: »

I don't think it's uncommon for washing machine drums to be unearthed.

am trying to decipher that .. do you mean that commonly the washing machine drums are normally earthed ?

2011

Thread moved as requested by OP.