my lighting keeps tripping

[Arkanon]

Hi folks,

I am building a topical fish house in my garage. I have installed 4x 6' double fluorescent light fittings and intend to install more. The first 4 are in the ceiling down the middle and one side.

They are wired using 2 core twin and earth (with the bare copper earth wire??). This goes from each light fitting to a junction box. the junction box then has normal cable (as you'd find on an extension lead) that draws power from a socket on the wall.

Every thing is fine untill i put all the tubes in and then the RCD in the house trips and everything goes dark.

If i take some of the starters out of the fittings they come on ok, and then add the starters and all the light stay on. but if i try to turn them all on together (the same time as intended) then it trips out.

Any ideas what i can do?

Thanks

Rob

 

[fattony]

They are wired using 2 core twin and earth (with the bare copper earth wire??). This goes from each light fitting to a junction box. the junction box then has normal cable (as you'd find on an extension lead) that draws power from a socket on the wall.

Correct the lights should be wired in a 1.5mm2 twin and earth cable, with the bare copper wire. Firstly not keen on how its wired, you really need to wire them off the lighting circuit and not just plugged in. You obviously have power in the garage is there a fuse bord or and existing light you could come off??

Secondly its good wiring practise to wire the lights in a daisy chain rather then bringing seperate cables back to a junction box. Wire a cable from your supply (fuse board or existing light) to a light switch, then another cable from the light switch into your first light, then onto the second light etc.

If the RCD is tripping it indicates a neutral to earth fault, don't think could be caused by the actual light fittings, I'd check connections / cable

 

[Arkanon]

Hi Thanks,

actually i do have a fuse board in the garage. It is the old one from the house. It has four fuses in, two of those are used with two lines of sockets running around the top of the garage every few feet. There are two spare. I guess I could create a separate line for the lighting, will have to work out a way to do the ring for the lights. It is quite an olf fuse box so i will have to hope the existing ones will be ok. The reason i did it this way is because I need the lights on a timer rather than a light switch, so that the lights come on automatically at 7am and go off at 11pm.

at least i got the cable right.... just have to figure out how to create a separate circuit. It may be easy enough now but when i decide to add mroe tanks and therefore lights later it may prove a little more difficult to add them?

Rob

 

[RF Lighting]

Are you sure it is the RCD that is tripping? Could it be an MCB? What rating and type is the RCD / MCB? It could be the inrush current to the fittings that is causing the tripping.

 

[Arkanon]

i did wonder that. It says it is an RCd on the thing though... it is a 63A one.

I have concluded that it isnt the inrush though because i had all the lights on for some time tonight and a few minutes ago the electric tripped out. i tried to turn it on again but it would not come on so i unplugged the lights in the garage and now all is ok again.

Surely the 63A would be anough anyway?

Rob

 

[Spark123]

The 63A is referring to the maximum current the RCD can safely handle, it will have another rating such as 30mA or 0.03A which is the trip setting. An RCD does not offer any overcurrent protection.

 

[securespark]

I am building a topical fish house

Topical fish?

They do current affairs gags?

 

[RF Lighting]

<RF chuckles to self>

 

[Arkanon]

0.03 is the other thing as i recall.

So... that means i have an earth leak or just wired it up totally wrong?

If it offers no over current then it definately isnt that and i had concluded that as it tripped after all the lights had been on for some time.

Yeah my fish are pretty rare haha

rob