I've just had my electrician install a 30mA RCCB (residual-current circuit breaker, basically a safety switch that'll cut the power before you get electrocuted to death) in my fuse box and unfortunately it trips straight away if anything more than a light is turned on. It all works fine if I just use a normal fuse though. So far I've been fobbed off and told he'll come back tomorrow with the boss, but obviously that didn't happen.I'm a bit miffed because the electrics were installed less than a year ago by the same electrician and if I can't even have a safety switch on a practically brand new installation then what the hell did I pay for?Does anyone know how to test a circuit/power-point for a fault without having to rip out the ceiling plaster to get to the wires? I'm not saying I'm gonna do it, I just need to know how it's done so that I can make sure that they do it.
I've just had my electrician install a 30mA RCCB (residual-current circuit breaker, basically a safety switch that'll cut the power before you get electrocuted to death) in my fuse box and unfortunately it trips straight away if anything more than a light is turned on. It all works fine if I just use a normal fuse though. So far I've been fobbed off and told he'll come back tomorrow with the boss, but obviously that didn't happen.I'm a bit miffed because the electrics were installed less than a year ago by the same electrician and if I can't even have a safety switch on a practically brand new installation then what the hell did I pay for?[/QUOTE]edit ...my reply was incoherent due Speedy dumping me...try tomorrow!
The tried and true (non-technical, but dangerous) way to test for a short in an existing installation (be it a machine or house) is to pump up the voltage with a genny until the place where it's shorting actually warms or smokes. Needless to say first disconnect all you goodies - TV, fridge, A/C, etc. No one admits to it but we've all done it - me on a $3 million installation.
I'm not good in electric stuff but I think there's some problems with grounding in your electric. Here in Indonesia ppl usually doesn't care about any grounding at all or just connecting it directly to the neutral wire. So, in this case it can be like in your case.Sure, electrician should know this but again, this is Indonesia...Or RCCB just was connected improperly.Hope there's no any short in your electric.
My internet seems more stable now so I'll try again to answer.I've never seen an RCCB in Indonesia before. An RCCB is a very sophisticated Circuit Breaker (C/B) that measures the current (Amperes) between the live wire and the neutral wire...it has nothing to do with grounding. If the balance between the two exceeds the size of the RCCB in current flow in Milliamps...and it is very precise and sensitive...it will trip.I think the reason RCCB's are not common in Indonesia is because the wiring code is substandard and there is Milliamp leakage all the time. Those RCCB's are manufactured for a standard of wiring code that IMO doesn't exist in Indonesia.My suggestion is to swop the RCCB for a standard C/B which works on a different principle...your fuse/distribution box should have numerous C/Bs already, protecting all your house circuitry...if there is a short between line to neutral or to ground it will trip...but it isn't as precise as an RCCB.RCCBs are generally used for areas where there could be water or humidity like bathrooms or kitchens...they are essentially a primary safety C/B and the fuse/circuit breaker/distribution box C/Bs become secondary. All household circuits are protected by C/Bs. The third defence is the C/B on the meter, which shuts all power. That's why sometimes when something like a faulty toaster, or whatever, is plugged in it will shut its own circuit C/B but, as there is a time delay, it can also trip the mains C/B.An electrician with a good multimeter can measure the balance between the 'line' wire and 'neutral' wire in any circuit...no need to do drastic unsafe things like markit suggests...but I think you'll find the RCCB is just too sophisticated for Indonesian wiring standards and will trip very often.
Thanks to everyone for their advice. Markit, are you sure you're not half Balinese?I actually bought 2 RCCBs (one for each fuse box. 2 per household is the legal standard in Australia). I very carefully replaced the existing one and was able to confirm that it wasn't a fault with the RCCB itself.Davita, I think you're spot on. The way they do the wiring here just isn't compatible with a modern RCCB. Your note about leakage was the prompt I needed to understand the situation. I never knew that there was always leakage in any kind of circuit, even if it's been wired perfectly. This webpage does a good job of explaining the concept:[url=http://www.fluke.com/fluke/uses/comunidad/fluke-news-plus/articlecategories/electrical/leakagebasics]Leakage current measurement basics[/url]Up until now, I was actually pretty happy with the electricians. They'd done a neat, organised and, what seemed to be at the time, professional job. I mean they brought there own tools with them! Nice ones! That they took care of! Can you believe it!In fairness, by Indonesian standards, they probably have done a good job. I'd agree with Davita, they've probably never actually used a RCCB on a project before. Still, if I'd known before hand that I wouldn't be able to use safety switches (i.e. RCCBs) I would have found someone who would've guaranteed that I could, or at least would have tested for it before all the plastering was done.In the whole build this was the only thing I left entirely up to someone else. So there you go. Bah!My next step is to install an ELCB (Earth Leakage Circuit Breaker), this detects current going to the actual ground rather than general leakage in the circuit. This will give us some level of protection against electrocution but are not as good as RCCBs. For example if you were to just go ahead and grab the neutral and live wires, the ELCB wouldn't save you as there is no current flowing through to the Earth wire.
Do not waste your time fitting a ELCB you will have the same problem. What circuit are you installing the RCCB on? Lights or Power?You can use a multi meter to test the power circuit but need to unplug all Appliances. If your RCCB gives a big bang when you set it, its a short between Positive & neutral or earth.If it just pops out with no noise it is a short between neutral & earth.Unless you have wired the house to a Neutral, multi earth system as in Australia you will have problems. There is so many ways a Indonesian Electrician can wire your house to make a RCCB pop.
Thanks Fred, here's the exact unit I've tried to install in my fuse box. They're easily available in any electrical supplies store. It just seems the wiring techniques they use here make them unusable.[ATTACH]2442.vB[/ATTACH]I bought 2 because in Australia it's now the standard to have 2 in a single house. I think the trend is going towards having every MCB replaced with a dual function RCCB/MCB but I think that's pretty expensive at the moment. I was going to have one on each floor of the house so that if they tripped it would be easier to work out where the problem was. So basically there's one RCCB to cover all the circuits on the first floor and another to cover all the circuits on the second floor. Every individual circuit has it's own MCB.Unless you have wired the house to a Neutral, multi earth system as in Australia you will have problems.[/QUOTE]Until now, I thought they'd done a pretty good job, and they've definitely used a standard Live, Neutral, Earth system. Although, there's only one grounding rod. I bought a proper 8 foot long, copper plated rod, so I am confident it's working.I can't say for certain, but I doubt there's any loose wires or any short circuits. It's my guess that they've done the junctions differently to what a western electrician would do and this has caused a lot of leakage, which generally doesn't cause problems if you're not using RCCBs. I remember having a look at a few junctions and I was surprised that it's just wires twisted together and wrapped in black electrical tape. They were neatly done, but it didn't look very modern. However, I don't know what a western junction box actually looks like, so I couldn't complain.If your RCCB gives a big bang when you set it, its a short between Positive & neutral or earth. If it just pops out with no noise it is a short between neutral & earth.[/QUOTE]It just instantly flips itself off. There's no bang or burning smell. The reason I don't think it's a short or a loose wire is that you can plug in a lamp and it doesn't trip the RCCB (or the MCB) but as soon as you plug in anything bigger like a TV or power tool, it trips. With these RCCBs, you've got 30mA of leakage before the RCCB will trip, my guess is that the wiring itself is leaking ~80% of that and then the natural leakage of any mid to large sized appliance is tipping it over the limit. I could probably buy a 100mA RCCB but apparently this isn't good enough to save your life in case of electrocution.Do not waste your time fitting a ELCB you will have the same problem.[/QUOTE]Is this because all the leakage is going to ground via the earth wire? I'm still not certain where all this leakage is actually going.
DPH it's really, really difficult to diagnose shorts in a house circuit hence my recommendation to test it to death. I've got 2 houses that would never pass muster in the west. I've got copper ground rods all over the shop and fairly simple wiring without anything special but you still can't touch metal surfaces and anything electrical with any confidence that you will not curl your hair (presuming you have any). Half the problem is ****ty wiring, half the problem is ****ty electricians and the other half of the problem is the humidity. Personally I wouldn't bother with any of this high tech bullturkey it will just lead you to believe you've got it done. That's dangerous -when you think it might kill you, you act accordingly.
"I bought 2 because in Australia it's now the standard to have 2 in a single house" In Queensland I run 5 RCCB, downstairs/upstairs power circuit, upstairs/downstairs light circuit and kitchen power circuit. The law now require RCCB on any circuit that you can plug something into including light bulbs.Most Indonesian wiring is positive/neutral and use the earth wire as a extra neutral, I have seen lights glow because of back feed and the hole system using one CB, you can understand when PLN turns up to connect the power & cuts the power at the CB, then when you reconnect and the house burns down its not there fault.If you can take a photo of how they have wired the CB & RCCB and were the earth is connected. In Australia we run everything back to the house board so all connection are easy to trouble shoot, not sure if you have the meter out front then the CB in the house with main switch.
If you can take a photo of how they have wired the CB & RCCB and were the earth is connected. In Australia we run everything back to the house board so all connection are easy to trouble shoot, not sure if you have the meter out front then the CB in the house with main switch.[/QUOTE]Thanks Fred. Yes, everything is run back to the fuse box / house board. The PLN meter and fuse box are both in the carport out the front of the house. He took the RCCB out to show his boss so I'll upload a photo when it gets put back in.On a related note, here's something I think I'll implement at my house as it definitely isn't implemented at the moment. I think it's called the Multiple (or Single?) Earthed Neutral (MEN) system and is the standard in Australia now.from here: [url=http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/archive/1770686]http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/archive/177068[/url]"the earth block and the neutral block in the main power box has a connection to each other. Is this right?"Yes, it's normal, its the way homes are wired in Australia. It lowers the fault path impedance, so for example in an active to earth fault instead of the current having to all go through your earth rod it can escape through the neutral connection which would have a much lower impedance.This ensures that in a fault situation enough current can flow to trip the safety device, instead of having 240v on your appliance frame waiting to kill someone.It also means that if your earth rod fails or rusts away completely, you are still protected through the neutral and everbody else's earth rods in the street.[/QUOTE]
I always love the general "perception of risk". You know, person terrified of flying, without a second thought gets into his muscled BMW without putting on seat belt for the high speed 40 mile trip to the airport. Driving being one of the most dangerous activities on Earth and flying one of the least. Nothing personal DPH but only using you as a Generic example:DPH lives on a small island firmly placed on the earthquake "Ring of Fire" close to the beach (Tsunami) and most probably drives his motorbike regularly without a helmet on some of the most death-defying roads on the planet, in a place with one of the worst healthcare records and availability around, but ****s himself about getting zapped by his house wiring. Heard about wet tiled floors, food poisoning, death by relative (Indo or other) and the funniest recently - death by stink fruit!
G'Day Markit, you put too much hyperbole on your Nasi Goreng this morning.****s himself about getting zapped by his house wiring.[/QUOTE]Half the reason I'm worried is because I'm a DIY tinkerer and the likelihood that I'll be playing around with electricity is high. For example, I'll be installing the automatic pump switch that sits on top of the water tank pretty soon. The other half is because our 10 month old has fallen in love with electrical sockets.
Sorry it really wasn't meant personally. Get some plug protectors, once they start putting things in them and see that it gets a "fun" reaction from all the adults there's not stopping them - until they get zapped. That tends to end that hobby.