Fixing TT earthing problems and gas bonding for an EV charger

Whoa there, if I have this right and eaually my nocturnal 3 r's may be letting me down ..... What voltage appears across Sunray until the RCD does it's job?
See my recent edit to post #87. My nocturnal thought problems led me to write about the situation with bonding present, whereas I should have been thinking of, and writing about, the situation without bonding.

If, per what I actually wrote, there is bonding, that that is not present in your diagram. If one adds it then I presume you agree that the voltage across Sunray would be very low (just over 1 volt with the figures in this diagram - 0.07Ω being roughly the resistance/impedance of 30m of a 10mm² bonding conductor) ...
1770643498702.png
 
230 volts 1770643957544.pngbonding and the resistors are just red herrings, This 1770644326086.png less than 50 volts, well less than 46 volts, the actual value would need the resistance of the body. The right hand 15Ω can really be ignored, it is a near short circuit when compared with bodies resistance.

What is more of a problem is earth to earth. 1770644842661.png Maximum is 230 volts, with no loss of PEN detection, with loss of PEN detection it says limit is 70 volts, but anything other than a car limit is 50 volts.

As to loss of PEN detection, seems a little daft for it only to disconnect the car, whole house needs disconnecting, however we have no way to disconnect the whole house, even if we know there is a fault, all we can do is switch off the lives (line and neutral) we can't disconnect the earth, we have not got that option.

So we are looking at a risk assessment, which has the highest risk, IT, TT, TN-S, TN-C-S? Back to the 80s the TN-C-S was OK, as all homes used around the same amount of power, so loss of PEN would cause the earths to have a potential between them, but that potential should not be that high.

Today we are looking at a massive difference between what homes use in the same street, and when we get some item's auto disconnecting when out of voltage range, then even worse, my home at the moment is using around 650 watts, but none of that is being drawn from the grid, if the voltage goes under or over the limit, the inverter will cut out. If it goes over, its cutting out will help as the home's load will reduce the voltage, however if it goes under however it will make it worse, the EV charging point will be the reverse, it is really quite simple TN-C-S is no longer fit for purpose.

What we would need is a Smart meter to connect the earth and neutral not hard-wired, and if the voltage is not within limits the meter will disconnect all three connections, not only the lives, but also the earths.
 
See my recent edit to post #87. My nocturnal thought problems led me to write about the situation with bonding present, whereas I should have been thinking of, and writing about, the situation without bonding.

If, per what I actually wrote, there is bonding, that that is not present in your diagram. If one adds it then I presume you agree that the voltage across Sunray would be very low (just over 1 volt with the figures in this diagram - 0.07Ω being roughly the resistance/impedance of 30m of a 10mm² bonding conductor) ...
View attachment 407167
Talk about confusion.
In the early hours I thought you WERE taking about WITHOUT bonding and made my post. However my wifi was inactive (I assume router was doing some sort of update?) so left PC on to complete the post as and when.
Restarting PC an hour or so ago to send an email it completed my post (which I didn't see or realise), coming back half hour ago I read my post including yours I quoted and made my edit at which point my PC displayed all of the updates and I found this latest... Grrrr.

I haven't done any calculations but yes I agree...
Now to read Erics
 
Talk about confusion. In the early hours I thought you WERE taking about WITHOUT bonding and made my post.
We both managed to get confused. Although it wasn't what I was 'meant' to be writing about, I obviously DID write about the situation WITH bonding, since my rough calculation was based on a 30m 10mm² bonding conductor!

However, I think we've probably both 'got it straight' now :-)(
 
230 volts View attachment 407168bonding and the resistors are just red herrings,
Actually I hadn't intended to be in contact with true earth but yes I concur
This View attachment 407169 less than 50 volts, well less than 46 volts, the actual value would need the resistance of the body.
...Assuming a TT earth of 15Ω and a similar extraneous 15Ω on something metal and while being in contact with both earths there is a direct 230V (protected by a 16A OCPD) earth fault:
Meaning direct short between L & E.

It would result in a 16A current to E and not being high enough to operate the OCPD would raise the MET potential to full 230V (ignoring wiring losses etc).
As already mentioned
The right hand 15Ω can really be ignored, it is a near short circuit when compared with bodies resistance.
So full 230V appearing across my chest.
 
60Ω + 15Ω = 75Ω then 230 volts / 75Ω x 15Ω = 46 volts, so that is maximum volts to earth. Have I made an error?
Other than introducing the 60Ω into the situation, No
 
what's the " 60Ω " ?
1770650989256.png
I had added a fault resistance, I had not worked it out, 0.030A x 15Ω = 0.45 volts before the RCD would trip, or 7.7kΩ to trip a RCD at 230 volts. The 15Ω is about what a 15 amp appliance would be. But as said the diagram did not really matter as to the ohms given, as no ohms for the body.
 
Taking hand to hand resistance as typically 1000Ω, using your example above the touch voltage at the fault would be 52.5V and the current across the body 52mA - so very likely fatal, less likely but not impossibly so if RCD protected due to the route of the current through the body.
 
I can't argue with your arithmetic, but what's the " 60Ω " ?
I had added a fault resistance,
That's unrealistic.

We conventionally (and, essentially, necessarily) work in terms of faults of negligible impedance' (taken as zero). A 60Ω fault is a totally different kettle of fish and would, for example, mean that OPD-mediated ADS would not work - even with a B6 MCB/RCBO, any fault impedance above about 7Ω would be too high for ADS.
 
Taking hand to hand resistance as typically 1000Ω, using your example above the touch voltage at the fault would be 52.5V and the current across the body 52mA - so very likely fatal, less likely but not impossibly so if RCD protected due to the route of the current through the body.
I presume you're talking about eric's 'example' which includes an unrealistic 60Ω fault resistance/impedance. With that, I reckon that the 'touch voltage' before someone does any touching would be 46 V, falling to about 45.5 V when they were touching it (assuming 1,000Ω body resistance) - still high enough to be potentially fatal, but I'm not sure what (if anything) I've done wrong to get a slightly different answer from your 52.5 V.

However, as I've said, the reality is much worse than that. If one has the (normally-assumed) 'fault of negligible impedance', then the touch voltage will approach 230V

It's the duration, rather than the magnitude, of a current through the body that is the major determinant of whether a shock is likely to be fatal (otherwise RCDs would be pretty useless) - so, in either of those cases (touch voltages of 40-50V or ~230V, it's quite possible that an RCD would prevent a fatal outcome.
 
Nor would I - which is why, as you correctly quoted, I wrote "Almost Never" :cool:

One of the very first things that was drummed into me during my higher/'professional' education was that, in the real world, any statement including superlative words such as "always", "never", "all", "none", "everyone", "no-one" etc. etc. etc. were nearly always going to be incorrect!

It's not really possible to argue with that, but one does have to (should) at least consider what is, and is not, 'significant' - as we often discuss, attempting to minimise 'risks' which are already incredibly small may not be 'sensible'.

However, just to be clear, I have in no way been suggesting that one should even think of omitting main bonding in a TT installation.

Kind Regards, John
Yes John, we are pretty much it total agreement with this(my post was in support) as indded we are on pretty much all things I reckon :giggle:
 

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