Why dose this happen? tumble dryer/rcd question

[ssray]

When I moved our tumble dryer to the understairs cupboard and plugged it in, it ran for a few secs then tripped the rcd-on the cu.

It was quite happy on the garage circit, so i connected it back to that with the same result.

when this happened in another house i was advised to move the whole lot to the non rcd side of the board, not an option on this board.

dont be to harsh only done part 2 so far.

ta
Ray

 

[RF Lighting]

Are the garage sockets RCD protected?

Does the tumble dryer trip the RCD if you plug it in to another socket downstairs, apart from the one under the stairs?

Do you have access to any test equipment?

 

[ssray]

The garage ring is rcd protected.

haven't tried another socket yet(why didn't i think of that!)

I have a fluke T5.

Will try another socket.

would it being a spur(non fused) not part of the ring main cause a problem?

Ray

 

[Spark123]

I doubt it, the likely cause is that something has happened inside the drier causing it to leak current to earth, could be a lump of dust dislodged, could be the element didn't like any vibrations in the move and the first time it got hot it burned out and sprung causing it to short to earth.
Could be moisture got somewhere where it shouldn't.

 

[BS3036]

I'm not quite sure from the description, but is this the same or a different RCD?

If different, there is a range of trip currents for any 30mA RCD, from just over 15mA to just under 30mA which could be the trip point, so they could have a sensitivity difference of almost 15mA, which could be the reason it trips.

Also the rcd which trips could already have a current differental close to 15mA, caused by leakage from other appliances, which could push it over the edge.

 

[FourFootMedia]

It was quite happy on the garage circit, so i connected it back to that with the same result.

When you say same result, do you mean it now also trips the RCD when re-connected to the garage circuit?
If so, then as previously mentioned the machine is at fault, probably caused by something moving when you moved it.
Did you tip it up when you moved it? Some dryers have a condesation tray in the bottom, which may have spilled onto something when it was tipped.

 

[ssray]

It appears that something had got wet when moving, all fixed now.

Thanks

Ray

 

[xAlex]

...Some RCD's like to just keep tripping once they have been tripped. Same thing hapened to me. I changed a lighting circuit sligtly - RCD tripped. Put everything back to how it was, then activating the shower tripped the RCD.