electrical problem
 

A five fused fusebox in friends garage (non rcd box) is supplied from an
rcd'd box in his house.
The garage box supplies, 2 fountain pumps
1 cesspit pump
garage doors, sockets and lights
pool pump etc
And
auto gates

On friday his gates tripped the rcd (continues to do so) Mr autogateman
finally blames one motor even though his meter finds no fault.

when the rcd was put back on neither the cesspit pump nor the fountain pumps
worked but garage doors sockets and lights ok

finally after tripping all switches in the garage box and turning on one by
one all starts to work again (not auto gates)
until the next day when cesspit overflows.

pump extracted, floats shaken a little, nothing. cesspit pump box (seperate
from fuse box) has a tripper switch off/on...pump works.

The question is are all these things related? If not are pumps and a motor
really all expiring at the same time? Is there any fault in a fusebox/supply
that can display these problems.
Why can I switch the fountain pumps on then nothing, change nothing other
than having all other trippers off then switch it on again and they work.

House is less than 10 years old.

Many thanks

Peter

electrical problem
 

On Jul 5, 9:31*pm, "Peter" wrote:
A five fused fusebox in friends garage (non rcd box) is supplied from an
rcd'd box in his house.
The garage box supplies, 2 fountain pumps
1 cesspit pump
garage doors, sockets and lights
pool pump etc
And
auto gates

On friday his gates tripped the rcd (continues to do so) Mr autogateman
finally blames one motor even though his meter finds no fault.

when the rcd was put back on neither the cesspit pump nor the fountain pumps
worked but garage doors sockets and lights ok

finally after tripping all switches in the garage box and turning on one by
one all starts to work again (not auto gates)
until the next day when cesspit overflows.

pump extracted, floats shaken a little, nothing. cesspit pump box (seperate
from fuse box) has a tripper *switch off/on...pump works.

The question is are all these things related? If not are pumps and a motor
really all expiring at the same time? Is there any fault in a fusebox/supply
that can display these problems.
Why can I switch the fountain pumps on then nothing, change nothing other
than having all other trippers off then switch it on again and they work.

House is less than 10 years old.

Many thanks

Peter

http://www.wiki.diyfaq.org.uk/index.php?title=RCD
The RCD trips on the total leakage current of all appliances. To find
out whats causing it you need to test each appliance for leakage. You
can crudely do that with a mutimeter, good enough to usually find the
culprit.


NT

electrical problem
 

In article , Peter phayward@de
letebtopenworld.com writes

A five fused fusebox

sub-consumer unit with RCDs, not fuses, judging from the rest of your
post ("trippers", not fuses)

when the rcd was put back on neither the cesspit pump nor the fountain pumps
worked but garage doors sockets and lights ok

finally after tripping all switches in the garage box and turning on one by
one all starts to work again (not auto gates)

pump extracted, floats shaken a little, nothing. cesspit pump box (seperate
from fuse box) has a tripper switch off/on...pump works.

Why can I switch the fountain pumps on then nothing, change nothing other
than having all other trippers off then switch it on again and they work.

If it were me, I'd be having a look inside the sub-unit in the garage.
Sounds like the installer may have forgotten to tighten the screws onto
the live busbar and the breakers are making intermittent contact.

Don't do this yourself, get a pro sparky in. No offence, but from the
sound of your post, you're not familiar with this stuff.

--
(\__/)
(='.'=) Bunny says Windows 7 is Vi$ta reloaded.
(")_(") http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/windows_7.png

electrical problem
 

Mike Tomlinson wrote:
In article , Peter phayward@de
letebtopenworld.com writes

A five fused fusebox

sub-consumer unit with RCDs, not fuses, judging from the rest of your
post ("trippers", not fuses)


ITYM MCB - miniature circuit breakers

http://wiki.diyfaq.org.uk/index.php?title=MCB


--
Cheers,

John.

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

electrical problem
 

Peter wrote:

when the rcd was put back on neither the cesspit pump nor the fountain pumps
worked but garage doors sockets and lights ok

What make are the MCBs in the garage CU?

finally after tripping all switches in the garage box and turning on one by
one all starts to work again (not auto gates)
until the next day when cesspit overflows.

pump extracted, floats shaken a little, nothing. cesspit pump box (seperate
from fuse box) has a tripper switch off/on...pump works.

A couple of options here; either there was power, but the pump (probably
an induction motor) had stalled at start-up. Powering off and on gave it
a kick and it started again. Alternatively I have also found some MCBs
that go faulty in a way that means they do not actually reconnect the
power every time you turn them on. This can make fault fining very
confusing since they look on, but it is random as to whether they
actually are.

The question is are all these things related? If not are pumps and a motor
really all expiring at the same time? Is there any fault in a fusebox/supply
that can display these problems.

It seems unlikely that they would all fail together. However the chap
testing the gates may have been doing insulation resistance checks on
the gate equipment. If he did not take care to protect devices like RCDs
connected to other parts of the system, there is a small chance he may
have damaged them.

Why can I switch the fountain pumps on then nothing, change nothing other
than having all other trippers off then switch it on again and they work.

See above.

Also check the supply voltage. A low supply will make it far more likely
that things like pumps will fail to spin up.



--
Cheers,

John.

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

electrical problem
 

In article , John
Rumm writes

ITYM MCB - miniature circuit breakers

I did. Not enough coffee. Thanks for the correction

--
(\__/)
(='.'=) Bunny says Windows 7 is Vi$ta reloaded.
(")_(") http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/windows_7.png