RCD random trips

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#1534793 18-Apr-2016 11:26

Aredwood: Supposedly the electrical rules will soon require the use of Arc Fault circuit breakers. Hopefully they will also allow Arc Fault breakers to be used instead of RCDs on some circuits. As Arc Fault breakers provide better protection against electrical fires starting. And no problems with nuisance tripping due to small amounts of earth leakage.

More likely in addition to existing RCD MCB combination.

gregmcc

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#1535103 18-Apr-2016 16:56

surfisup1000:

Aredwood:

There are other things in your house that have current leaks. Some which cannot be avoided. Such as capacitive coupling in your wiring. And the interference filters that are built into every switchmode power supply. (the filter circuits contain small capacitors wired between the phase / neutral and earth).

See if you can get a dedicated RCD installed just for the circuit that supplies the fridge. If you cannot get all of the circuits split out to individual RCDs. As 10 circuits on that RCD means average leakage current of only 3mA per circuit. In reality lower as RCD will trip at less than 30mA.

Supposedly the electrical rules will soon require the use of Arc Fault circuit breakers. Hopefully they will also allow Arc Fault breakers to be used instead of RCDs on some circuits. As Arc Fault breakers provide better protection against electrical fires starting. And no problems with nuisance tripping due to small amounts of earth leakage.

Thanks for the reply, you seem to know what you are talking about.

So, I have a lot of ac adapters around the house. I'm guessing, probably somewhere between 30-50 plugged in around the place.

As for the fridge, yes, I understand why. Our fridge was causing one of our trips last year when the internal defrosting element failed (for the second time). But, hard to figure out because it only happens randomly at first. An electrician couldn't have figured it out as it only happened 'sometimes' when the heating element came on. Although, I guess fridges may be the primary reason for trips so they might have zeroed in right away.

I like the idea of these arc breakers. RCD trips have been a nightmare for us.

Arc fault detection is quite a different fault to RCD, No chance of them replacing RCD's

webwat

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#1538403 22-Apr-2016 20:37

surfisup1000:

I am thinking about getting the RCD replaced as per the previous poster. But, it is like hunting for a needle in a haystack.

I think the person who invented the rcd should have built in a method to spot faults. At the very least, say which circuit caused the trip. If that is even possible.

Anything on the same RCD is all on the one circuit, thats its function: to trip when theres a leak on the circuit. Would be very expensive to put every outlet on a separate circuit! However I was told by a sparkie at work that fridges can trip RCDs so he recommended me not to put the fridge on a plugin RCD.

Time to find a new industry!

Juicytree

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#1538427 22-Apr-2016 21:16

As a protection from having a freezer full of muck after returning from time away I have purchased an old smart phone and plugged its charger into my freezer circuit. I have installed an app such as 'globio' alarm system (there are others available). When the electricity fails it sends an email to me as well as a text. It hasn't happened yet but I'll simply get my neighbor to check things out. A 2degrees sim is about $20 a year.

dan

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#1541295 24-Apr-2016 18:18

i feel your pain as have been going though the same annoyance this week, loose half the house power each time

2 trips on Monday

2 on Wednesday Morning

4 Saturday Night

have managed to rule out Fridge, Home Theatre gear etc, nearly everything else in kitchen, but still a dozen+ things it could be, very frustrating how its intermittent makes it very hard to isolate

surfisup1000

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#1541333 24-Apr-2016 20:02

dan:

i feel your pain as have been going though the same annoyance this week, loose half the house power each time

2 trips on Monday

2 on Wednesday Morning

4 Saturday Night

have managed to rule out Fridge, Home Theatre gear etc, nearly everything else in kitchen, but still a dozen+ things it could be, very frustrating how its intermittent makes it very hard to isolate

could still be the fridge....if it has a defrost element to defrost the inside of the fridge -- this comes on intermittently. And, can fail easily.

dan

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#1541337 24-Apr-2016 20:08

nope not the fridge, since i had it complete unplugged from the wall when i had the last 2 rcd trips last night, i was happy to get that ruled out as most likely suspect,

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gregmcc

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#1541342 24-Apr-2016 20:23

It's not beyond the realm of possibility that it's a faulty RCD

richms

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#1541343 24-Apr-2016 20:31

Remove any powerstrips with surge protection. Ive found that those cause more issues than they solve.

Richard rich.ms

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#1541350 24-Apr-2016 20:45

Is there any correlation between humidity and trip? I believe I traced one to cobwebs in a light switch. Some moisture ingress + damp weather + dusty cobwebs. It could have been something else but it did not trip again.

dan

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#1541351 24-Apr-2016 20:45

i agree seems logical to me RCD should be ruled out,. but electrician assures me it wont be the RCD, i nearly bought one on Friday just because i wanted to rule it out, then the dudes at the sparky shop saying the same thing it wont be the rcd so i didnt buy it in the end

and yea ive ordered 8 new powerboards from CDL earlier today will be swapping them all out just incase.

gzt

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#1541355 24-Apr-2016 20:59

This is interesting. Fluke primer on leakage current.

Also it says telecommunication filters can introduce grounding trips.

Rikkitic

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#1541456 25-Apr-2016 08:49

We don't have RCDs in our old farmhouse but I did have issues with intermittent arcing light switches. Turned out to be ants. I would imagine something like that could also certainly cause RCD trips.

Plesse igmore amd axxept applogies in adbance fir anu typos

mdf

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#1541520 25-Apr-2016 10:36

I share your pain. Our series of constant RCD trips was a few years ago now but was a real nuisance.

We eventually traced ours back to the power socket for our external Infinity water heater. The seal on the power box had degraded/not been installed right the first time, and eventually filled up with enough water to short it out. In hindsight it seemed so obvious - check any outside stuff first, since it might be wet - but it took us a while to get there.

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#1541943 26-Apr-2016 08:42

thanks for all the advice

after more trips last night i unplugged the next batch of stuff to rule them out, including my wifes laptop

this morning she took her laptop and plugged it in somewhere else, and the OTHER rcd tripped which has never tripped before, so looks like i have found the cause.

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