So - the whole lot went again at the weekend (Sunday of course) after nearly
2 months of working faultlessly. Sudden trip - no way to reset the RCD
pretecting the whole lot (100mA).

Sparky was and still is on hols in Wales - and after a quick chat - I
decided to work this thru on my own.

Popped the front off the fuse board and was amazed at the number of wires -
bit daunting.

Started by dropping out the live of each circuit - seeing if there was any
immediate change. No change - still can't re-set the RCD.

So start tracing back the neutrals from the bus bar to match up with the
lives - the drop one circuit at a time - including dropping out of the
equation and patching in with a long bridge all the works just done in the
kitchen. Still no go - right up until I disconnect the last circuit - WATER
HEATER - now the run to the boiler post all the works.

Back up it comes. Cue confused eyes.

Plug everything back in - except the boiler cct - plug all the applainces
back in - re-create the circumstances under which it went - nothing - worked
fine.

Cue curious eyes. Re-connect suspect circuit - RCD won't go live - hmmm -
arse - it's the boiler - oh well - it's warm outside and I can get the telly
back on in time to watch top gear and keep the beer in the fridge cold
enough and avoid a mercy run to the folks with the contents of the freezer -
result.

Stop and think about things - the boiler is protected by a fused DP switch -
wonder what's going on - so disconnect the live and the neutral at the
switch - and try again - huzzah - the RCD goes on. Odd.

Probably well against regulation (but I know it's a straight run - 1 join as
far as the switch on 40a cable - I put a socket on the end and plug in a
kettle and fire it up - figuring the boiler is 150w - the kettle is ~3kw -
this should put a decent load on the cable and if it's screwed possibly
cause it to dump - nowt.

carefully re-wire switch with boiler and cable meeting up. Reconnect all -
check - double check - and fire it up - and all is fine!

So - either the boiler has an earth leak that's borderline enough to cause
the RCD to drop out - or - there was a fault that I missed either in the
fuse board or at the boiler end.

Either way - the electrician is going to come back next week to re-check the
circuit - but it looks like either the switch is up the poke (unlikely) -
or - the boiler is iffy.

Thanks for all the pointers you all offered before. Although I still don't
have a definate finger of blame here - I am much better acquainted with it
all - and reckon that if push came to shove I could replace the whole lot
(fuse board) with a split load so that we could at least maintain some form
of service if things were to go a bit awry. I know also know that we do
have an earth provided by the leccy company - and our meter makes a really
dodgy buzzing and popping/bouncing noise all the time - even when there's no
load on it (which is a little annoying when you spend the afternoon with
your head close to it - and is now more or less impossible to miss while
sitting in the lounge) - so I'll call the leccy board about this.

So - progress (of sorts) - I'm quite chuffed. I did find lots of loose
connections in the fuse board which can't be attributed to the sparky (not
the ccts he played with) - and many of the neutrals were loose. That - and
a bleedin great screw dropped out of the guts of the box once I got to
connecting/disconnecting things - can't help but think a 6x1.5 woodscrew
can't have been doing much good lost in the works!!

Thanks all once again, really appreciate it.

If it goes south again - think I'll get a megger (can you rent for a couple
of days? I found a place selling them for a couple of hundred quid today -
but that's a tad overkill) and test it top to bottom - and perhaps replace
the fuse board...

On that topic - how do you do this without pulling the master fuse?? I know
it can be done as I've seen it - but personally I don't like buggering about
with something that's 100A @ 230v - and I can't get wellies in my size ;-)

Cheers
Dan.

Dan delaMare-Lyon wrote:

If it goes south again - think I'll get a megger (can you rent for a couple
of days? I found a place selling them for a couple of hundred quid today -
but that's a tad overkill) and test it top to bottom - and perhaps replace
the fuse board...

You can usually pick up a megger on ebay for £50... can always sell it
again once done.

On that topic - how do you do this without pulling the master fuse?? I know
it can be done as I've seen it - but personally I don't like buggering about
with something that's 100A @ 230v - and I can't get wellies in my size ;-)

Pull the fuse - don't even think about doing it live!

--
Cheers,

John.

/================================================== ===============\
| Internode Ltd - http://www.internode.co.uk |
|-----------------------------------------------------------------|
| John Rumm - john(at)internode(dot)co(dot)uk |
\================================================= ================/

On that topic - how do you do this without pulling the master fuse?? I
know it can be done as I've seen it - but personally I don't like
buggering about with something that's 100A @ 230v - and I can't get
wellies in my size ;-)

Pull the fuse - don't even think about doing it live!

Just a thought on that!

Here we don't use a fuse; after the outside meter (provided by the power
utility but plugged into owners meter socket, the next thing is the main
circuit breaker in its own separate section of the main panel (i.e. CU).
So we have safely disconnected and then later reconnected (using rubber
gloves for extra insurance) the overhead 120/230 volt incoming live leg/s
wires leaving the neutral intact, by making sure everything in the house was
switched off so that there was no 'current' flowing at all. We were also
standing on a dry tar and gravel roof and the maximum voltage to ground
being 120 volts RMS wearing rubber soled boots or shoes!

On Tue, 6 Jun 2006 00:14:50 UTC, John Rumm
wrote:

Dan delaMare-Lyon wrote:

If it goes south again - think I'll get a megger (can you rent for a couple
of days? I found a place selling them for a couple of hundred quid today -
but that's a tad overkill) and test it top to bottom - and perhaps replace
the fuse board...

You can usually pick up a megger on ebay for £50... can always sell it
again once done.


http://www.tlc-direct.co.uk/Main_Ind...est_Meters_2/i
ndex.html

89 quid plus VAT for a brand new one.
--
The information contained in this post is copyright the
poster, and specifically may not be published in, or used by
Avenue Supplies, http://avenuesupplies.co.uk

Dan delaMare-Lyon wrote:

If it goes south again - think I'll get a megger (can you rent for a couple
of days? I found a place selling them for a couple of hundred quid today -
but that's a tad overkill) and test it top to bottom - and perhaps replace
the fuse board...

You can make your own for a fiver. Use either a cockroft walton
multiplier off the mains or a hand cranked microwave oven turntable
motor to get the 500v / 1kV, and a standard meter or multimeter to read
current.. Ether a 2nd meter to measure voltage or a zener & tr type
arrangement.

But, meggers are dangerous items if you dont know exactly what youre
doing with them. There are non-obvious electrocution scenarios.

And you dont normally need a megger to find a leakage fault anyway, in
almost every case the fault shows up on a simple multimeter.

If you do replace the CU the boiler could go on the non-rcd side. Fixed
earthed appliances really dont need rcd protection, earth leakage just
isnt a signifcant safety issue with them.


NT

"Bob Eager" wrote in message
...


http://www.tlc-direct.co.uk/Main_Ind...est_Meters_2/i
ndex.html

89 quid plus VAT for a brand new one.

Marvellous - thanks Bob. So the question becomes - which one do I need to
test out all our cabling if my most recent works haven't solved it? I've
seen loads! What I think I need to do is test each cct to identify a cct
with issues - then chop up the cct until I find the fault. The devices
plugged in end are a different challenge

Cheers
Dan.

"John Rumm" wrote in message
...
Dan delaMare-Lyon wrote:

On that topic - how do you do this without pulling the master fuse?? I
know it can be done as I've seen it - but personally I don't like
buggering about with something that's 100A @ 230v - and I can't get
wellies in my size ;-)

Pull the fuse - don't even think about doing it live!

Wouldn't have done - but haven't I read on here before that I'm not allowed
to do this?

Cheers
Dan.

wrote in message
oups.com...
Dan delaMare-Lyon wrote:

If it goes south again - think I'll get a megger (can you rent for a
couple
of days? I found a place selling them for a couple of hundred quid
today -
but that's a tad overkill) and test it top to bottom - and perhaps
replace
the fuse board...

You can make your own for a fiver. Use either a cockroft walton
multiplier off the mains or a hand cranked microwave oven turntable
motor to get the 500v / 1kV, and a standard meter or multimeter to read
current.. Ether a 2nd meter to measure voltage or a zener & tr type
arrangement.

Sounds a bit heath-rob to me ;-) Cool tho.

But, meggers are dangerous items if you dont know exactly what youre
doing with them. There are non-obvious electrocution scenarios.

Thus the looking for one - and then some learning

And you dont normally need a megger to find a leakage fault anyway, in
almost every case the fault shows up on a simple multimeter.

Gotcha.

If you do replace the CU the boiler could go on the non-rcd side. Fixed
earthed appliances really dont need rcd protection, earth leakage just
isnt a signifcant safety issue with them.

Yup - everything would go on the non-rcd side that didn't need protection.

Cheers
Dan.

Dan delaMare-Lyon wrote:

Wouldn't have done - but haven't I read on here before that I'm not allowed
to do this?

Probably, since the fuse belongs to the supplier. Having said that
people pull the fuse all the time when doing what you want to do, and no
one seems to care. If anyone asked you could simply say "oh yeah, the
chap who replaced the consumer unit did that!"

--
Cheers,

John.

/================================================== ===============\
| Internode Ltd - http://www.internode.co.uk |
|-----------------------------------------------------------------|
| John Rumm - john(at)internode(dot)co(dot)uk |
\================================================= ================/

In article ,
Dan delaMare-Lyon wrote:
Marvellous - thanks Bob. So the question becomes - which one do I need
to test out all our cabling if my most recent works haven't solved it?

A decent DVM will show up 99% of the faults a Megger will do.

--
*I'm pretty sure that sex is better than logic, but I can't prove it.

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

In article ,
John Rumm wrote:

Pull the fuse - don't even think about doing it live!

Talking about "doing it live", I spotted people up loads of the pylons
around here today painting them (yellow for some reason...)

Is this done live? Looks like the cables maybe earthed in the second shot
so I guess not

http://bogit.com/blogphotos/pylonpainting.jpg
http://bogit.com/blogphotos/pylonpainting2.jpg

Darren

"Dan delaMare-Lyon" wrote in message
...
So - the whole lot went again at the weekend (Sunday of course) after
nearly 2 months of working faultlessly. Sudden trip - no way to reset the
RCD pretecting the whole lot (100mA).

Sparky was and still is on hols in Wales - and after a quick chat - I
decided to work this thru on my own.

Just a quick follow up - Sparky phoned this evening to see how things were.

We had a chat - he has meggered the sockets cct. Cooker cct was untouched
(as in no cable modifications - only past the switch) - and he only did
R1+R2 on the water heater/boiler cct so will drop by and megger the circuit
to work out what's going on. Failing that he's offered next time it goes
south (if at all) to come and megger thru each cct until we get to the
bottom of it. Although I think I could now do this myself - it's nice ot
have someone to call on on a Sunday when it (inevitably) goes bang!

Again, huge thanks to one and all who offered advice - really have learned
out of this. Now if screwfix would just stop sending sodding catalogues
with bargain consumer unit bundles - I might be able to get the guts of the
existing CU out of my head ;-)

Cheers
Dan.

The message
from (dmc) contains these words:

Is this done live? Looks like the cables maybe earthed in the second shot
so I guess not

http://bogit.com/blogphotos/pylonpainting.jpg
http://bogit.com/blogphotos/pylonpainting2.jpg

Clearly earthed in both shots. That's what the squiggly jumpleads are.

--
Skipweasel
Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain.

In article ,
Guy King wrote:

http://bogit.com/blogphotos/pylonpainting.jpg
http://bogit.com/blogphotos/pylonpainting2.jpg

Clearly earthed in both shots. That's what the squiggly jumpleads are.

Thought so. Still looked like a nightmare job though (made me feel guilty
about whinging about having to paint the fence ;-))

Darren

dmc wrote:
Guy King wrote:
http://bogit.com/blogphotos/pylonpainting.jpg
http://bogit.com/blogphotos/pylonpainting2.jpg
Clearly earthed in both shots. That's what the squiggly jumpleads are.

Thought so. Still looked like a nightmare job though (made me feel guilty
about whinging about having to paint the fence

I don't understand why they're being painted in the first place, unless
it's for camouflage, or something.