What did you do today (2015)

Attended my local Astronomical Association on Friday to listen to a lecture by Damian Peach on Hi Resolution Astrophotography with some truly stunning images of the planets. As there are a number of forum members who have an interest here is the link to his website which is well worth a look. He also does a DVD course on technique (currently out of stock unfortunately)

**LINK**

It is truly astonishing the quality that can be obtained by amateurs these days with very affordable equipment.

regards Martin

The clock looks like its 5 mins past 4, but I can't tell if that is AM or PM, as it is light outside its probably 16:05.
BobH

I think there's been a dozen or so houses lost, but no loss of life so far. we should be getting the smoke this side of the Tasman by Christmas.

Had a hot day here today, 30*+, 36.5* in Christchurch, tomorrow's forecast is for about half that, that's the way the weather goes here.

Ian S C

His work is superb.

As for your second point, yes it is incredible. I've seen amateur stuff that starts to rival the pre-digital images from the Palomar 200-ince reflector - and it's in colour rather than B&W!

Neil

A tale of woe, again. Woke up to find the RCB had tripped during the night, so reset and it stayed in OK. Looked at a clocked stopped at 0400.

Yesterday evening it tripped again and I reset it OK. Then again woke up to find it had tripped during the night again. Called the Nephew Electritian and he tested out all the ring mains and sockets and found no fault . The possibility is that it is a Fridge/freezer or another Fridge or the Central heating and now I dont know how to test these separately. Considering the cost of a replacement upright fridge /freezer at £509 (Whirlpool) I can replace the smaller fridge quite easily as they are not expensive. The central heating is another thing altogether but as it's on another circuity I doubt it is the culprit. A PAT test may show a fault but if it is a switching fault how do I find it?

Clive

Hi Clive,
If you have any sockets that are not fed via the RCD you could try connecting each of the suspect items to it with a plug in RCD and extension lead in turn until you identify the faulty one. Is everything in your house fed via one master RCD or is it a split board with parts fed without RCD protection or via their own RCBOs (An RCBO is like an MCB but with a built in RCD.) An RCBO can be identified as it will have a test button.

Les.

You could narrow it down considerably by switching off/disconnecting everything you don't need before you go to bed. If it doesn't trip then try again with half the disconnected items back on. If it trips then try again with only half the items. If no trip then try with half of the other items connected. Repeat as required. 3/4 moves should crack it

1. We used to have RCD trips associated with tap changing because the local industrial estate went home. Always a Friday between 1600 and 1800. I changed the RCD to a 100mA one to cure.

2. About 10 years later RCD going off again, traced to condensation inside ONE arm of a three armed metal chandelier dripping onto the bulb/earth!! No other moisture seen anywhere.

Bit like our case# 1, your fridge/freezer /central heating pump run 24/7 why night trip. Sounds like lecky board induced on, perhaps, a marginal circuit.

Frank

The freezer pump only runs on demand so try making the fridges and frezzers cycle by turning the freezer and refrigerator stat up and down. If a fridge freezer most but not all have separate compressors.

The central heating pump only runs when there is demand to heat hot water or the radiators.

There are bits like the motorised valves on the heating system that move then the pump runs or it moves whilst the pump is running but only for a minute so make the heating come on, increase the temperature on the wall stat to give demand and cycle pump and boiler on off with the stat.

Then put demand for hot water on and make sure that the tank stat is set high enough to give demand then check boiler and motorised valve cycles.

Steve

Clive

I don't know the style of property you live in but this sounds familiar to me, fault eventually traced to mice damaged T&E cable in a loft, vertigris formed around the damaged cable and sufficient path LE for a fault to trip an RCD, the same would happen with NE fault.

Emgee

Quite common for fridge freezers to trip things, when I do a kitchen I get the sparks to put in a separate circuit just for the fridge & freezer, auto defrost ones do it quite a bit. The extra cost is negligible when you are fitting Sub-zero, Liebherr, etc

J

Also anything with heaters and water eg immersion heaters, washing machines, showers, kettles. is a good starting point for elcb trips.

Had my freezers put on their own RCbo circuits. So that trip on another circuit doesn't take out main rcd and do a forced defrost on the freezer when on holiday, learnt the lesson the hard way when pond took out main rcd.

Steve

The mains board has 2 RCD's, the circuits are split so kitchen and utility room and one small bedroom on one circuit and then living room and 3 bedrooms on the other. Cooker, Central heating, dish washer and fridges in wall sockets. garage has its own ring main entirely isolated from the main board.

Just comes to mind that an outside security sensor light might be a problem, checking it out tomorrow. Maybe better to just replace it.

Nephew is an Electrician and came in this afternoon and checked all house circuits/ring mains all good with no earth drops and high leakage figures of 500 to 999.

So problem seems to come out as something which is plugged in and operating 24hr. Kettle and toaster and things like that are all switched off at night including the PC. Will start testing with plug in RCD and see what happens.

Clive

Thank you for all the help. Will report any findings.

No problems overnight with the electrics, thank goodness as I have enough verbal about missing programmes etc.

Too wet and windy today to do anything outside as it's raining and high winds.

Clive

EDIT Should of course be E&N connection

Emgee

Edited By Emgee on 22/12/2015 11:55:03

Just had another chat to the Nephew and he has put part of the board outlets through another RCbo which I would think isolates some of the problems to one set of equipment and not knock out all the circuits.

So it appears that the upstairs will be out of the trip circuit and only the kitchen and one upstairs bedroom would be involved.

Thinking of the outside sensor light, that I have found out is on the garage ring main and not involved with the house.

Clive

Is the garage Fuse box / Circuit breaker box fed direct from the incoming fuses at the meter or from one way in the House Box?

Mine is a 40amp breaker in the house box feeding the box in the workshop.

Steve

It must be the season for it. I just got a text from one of my clients in Guatamala to say her house sitter only had electrics in part of the house. So went down there and its the American style fridge freezer tripping the RCD on one of the consumer units.

Just offered me whatever I want from it as she will get a new one when back in the UK and its packed full

Just you take care young Jason ! I used to be a slim little thing and full freezers ( if we'd had them in those days) had no appeal...........Then I met my wife who is a great cook and well .... the rest is history !

Norman