Can an electrician swap my MCBs for RCBOs?

[JohnW2]

I did see an unusual one in the past - a rcbo that had indication by Half Up = One state and full up = other state but can not remember which was which RCD/MCB but once it had been reset you had no idea which off state it had been trying to inform you, so if the customer reset it themselves you had no idea what trip(s) it was indicating unless you repeated the result for yourself.

Yes, I suppose it's pretty inevitable (without even more 'cleverness') that the 'indicator' will get reset if/when the device is reset (if it can be), so if it's an intermittent fault and the device has been reset by the time an electrician sees it, no-one will be the wiser as regards what 'type'of trip had occurred!

 

[morqthana]

Given that devices, and therefore faults detected, are getting wider in scope (overcurrents, earth faults, bi-directional, arc faults, etc), I wonder if we will, or should want to, see CUs where instead of each device having local indicators (which adds physical size and mechanical complexity) there's some sort of comms link between them, or comms running over the bus bar, linked to a management unit which logs and displays detailed fault information?

I'd be surprised if there were no Building Management Systems out there doing things along those lines.

 

[JohnW2]

Given that devices, and therefore faults detected, are getting wider in scope (overcurrents, earth faults, bi-directional, arc faults, etc), I wonder if we will, or should want to, see CUs where instead of each device having local indicators (which adds physical size and mechanical complexity) there's some sort of comms link between them, or comms running over the bus bar, linked to a management unit which logs and displays detailed fault information?

Interesting thought, but the 'comms link' (not to mentions its power supply) within each device might negate some of the perceived benefits by "adding physical size and electronic complexity", mightn't it?

Whether, even given the increasing range of 'detection devices', we actually 'need' such systems is probably a different matter. It's not as if the 'fault detection devices' are generating a plethora of data all the time - each will probably only generate a single burst of data 'once in a blue moon'(if ever)!