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RCD Keeps Tripping

Many thanks - I'm on the case to get a new MEM CU as I type this. Any advice on any particular MEM type?
you really need to engage a well-recommended local electrician who is a member of a self-certification scheme, because fitting a new CU is notifiable work (by law) and it will work out more expensive if you DIY it and pay the local authority, and especially if you have to buy or hire the specialist test equipment and learn to use it.

choosing the CU is the least of your worries.

If you buy one and then later engage an electrician he will be peeved because it might not be quite what he would have recommended, and as he will not be able to make a profit buying it on his trade account, he will winch up the labour cost to compensate.

that said, if the CU is in garage or workroom, a metal one will stand up better to things accidentally banging into it. Memera 2000 is roomier inside , and more rigid, than 2000 AD range, especially in larger sizes. If you decide to get all-RCBOs it will be expensive, but you then can use a 100A main switch and do not need (or want) an RCD as well. If you have some RCBOs and some MCBs, you need the MCBs to be protected by an RCD. It is worth buying a very large enclosure as it gives room for future expansion (mine is a 22-way, IIRC, though I am only using about 9) because a larger enclosure does not cost much more, you are just buying a bigger box and some fresh air. You can buy the MEM RCBO pods separately and retrofit them to MEM MCBs as long as they are not the AD range (I have found the pods fit on MCBs that have the green/red flag window, but not ones without) to assemble any rating you need (not all are kept in stock ready-made).

MEM is a premium brand and not all outlets sell it. Anyone that caters for industrial and commercial is likely to, as it used extensively where reliability and quality are key. The industrial "Memshield" MCBs and RCBOs fit into the lighter Memera enclosures (but not the other way round)
 
you really need to engage a well-recommended local electrician who is a member of a self-certification scheme, because fitting a new CU is notifiable work (by law)

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Joined: 28 Mar 2010
Posts: 37
Location: Argyll,
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Before you do anything, get someone round with an IR tester and RCD tester, and see what's what. Does your mate have this equipment?

PS. Ignore Banal-sheds, he often posts like that as it helps with his inferiority complex.
 
Yes, Argyll, home of the sock.

but doesn't Scotland work on a process of Warrants for this work, which is in some way analogous to E&W Building Control notification?

not something I know about.
 
Thanks folks - sound advice.

Had a chat with my friend, who is Chartered, and HV AP, LV CP, is going to have a look.

He's basically suggested the same as JohnD (thanks again) so after he's had a look, he will fit a new CU as outlined above as its notifiable up here.

As an aside, and for anyone else in Scotland, there isn't a mains switch - goes straight from the meter through a 100a fuse to the CU. So to legally isolate it, I have to pay Scottish Power £35 to fit a 100a fused switch !


Edit - its 140 quid for an isolation switch..gulp
 
PS. Ignore Banal-sheds, he often posts like that as it helps with his inferiority complex.
Would you please put forward a rational case explaining why the questions I asked are unimportant, and can safely be ignored by anyone changing a CU.

If you can't do that would you please explain why you think it is a good idea to advise people to ignore important safety considerations because I have written them, and you have taken a dislike to me.

When you've done that perhaps you would care to explain why you think that in general terms advice given on this forum should be influenced by your pathetic and juvenile attitude.
 
Hi,

I read in one of the replies to this question that a domestic RCD trips in a nominal 30ms. Can someone confirm that the max trip tim for a 30ma non delay RCD is 300ms.
Just want to check my understanding and reading of the big red book is correct or not.

Thanks
 
STI said:
I read in one of the replies to this question that a domestic RCD trips in a nominal 30ms. Can someone confirm that the max trip tim for a 30ma non delay RCD is 300ms.
I believe it must be within 300ms for 1xIΔn and within 40ms for 5xIΔn.
 
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PS. Ignore Banal-sheds, he often posts like that as it helps with his inferiority complex.
Would you please put forward a rational case explaining why the questions I asked are unimportant, and can safely be ignored by anyone changing a CU.

If you can't do that would you please explain why you think it is a good idea to advise people to ignore important safety considerations because I have written them, and you have taken a dislike to me.

When you've done that perhaps you would care to explain why you think that in general terms advice given on this forum should be influenced by your pathetic and juvenile attitude.

I am not going to get in to another one of your thread hijacking drawn out pedantic arguments, so I will simply say that, rationally, you didn't post that in order to assist the OP, you posted it to make yourself feel smugly superior. Well, this forum is here to help people with electrics, not to boost your ego with embarrassing displays one-upmanship and the belittling of strangers.
 
With Bongos response i think i am reading page 243 of the big red book correctly and that shows for a non delay type 30ma is 300ms max at 30ma and therefore i guess to use the table you multiply the 30ma x 5 for the 5x response which gives you 150ma and that appears to be 40ms disconnect time.

Type S seems to start at 100ma with a 130 min and 500ms max at 1x and 40 - 150 max at 5x.

But i could be reading this totaly wrong :?
 
Not sure if this is relevant or significant, but yesterday I had a look in the outside meter box. The 100a incomer fuse wasn't lock wired etc, so I removed it just to see the condition etc. Also noticed while I was in the box, that its a PME installation.

Now the weird thing is, since I've taken out the fuse & put it back in, the RCD hasn't tripped? Up until then, it was tripping 6-7 times a day, or more.

Its now gone 20 hours without tripping.

Not sure if this is related, or just coincidence.

Anyone got a technical explanation?
 

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