carlyai

I was a volunteer when I lived in Pattaya.

I think the reason the unit was first started was because the Pattaya police were completely overwhelmed, and it was started to 'help'.

I only worked at the Pattaya Police Station on the help desk.

There were usually 3 or 4 of us who could speak Thai and German, Chinese, Aussie, etc.

We had the phone numbers of someone we could call to speak to the tourists in their own native language.

Mostly we helped with people upset over traffic violations, (no international licence etc).

We also dealt with jet ski settlements or trying to get the price lower for jet ski damage. Just advising.

One Aussie family on holidays came in with the same old problem, rented jet ski and had to pay some excessive extortion for damages.

Trouble is that they had signed the insurance paper that listed all the costs etc if there was damage, and they agreed that the photos before and after they rented the jet ski were correct. No damage before and damage after. We all know a scam.

So the problem was they could get a lawyer and fight the case in court, or try and negotiate a settlement price on the day and forget the incident and return to their family holiday.

A price was negotiated and they returned to their holiday. Not a great result but probably the best for them.

Don't think the FPV handle jet ski incidents any more.

We had another guy come in all flustered and scared and had these big red welts around his neck, and said he had just been hung by other farangs in Pattaya. We didn't touch anything like that but advised him to see the real police on duty.

Another Aussie guy refused to pay his stay at the hospital as he did not believe he had been in intensive care for 7 days.

Seems like he was a diabetic, went into a coma, and was sent to the hospital by the hotel staff who found him collapsed in his room.

Because we could speak English we tried to help him, but unfortunately he said he was going back to his room to get the money, and left.

So, we do try and help.

We also dealt with jet ski settlements or trying to get the price lower for jet ski damage. Just advising.

I wouldn't use that as a justification, given that a certain well known group of Thais are involved in that scam.

Why were the volunteers only involved on Walking Street when there were far more bars etc elswhere in Pattaya, and nothing was ever done about the child abuse going on there or the ladyboys on Beach Rd?

Sorry, but I was with the FPV not the Tourist Police V.

They are or were seperate groups.

There were some farangs who seemed to work for the Pattaya Police high er ups, but we stayed well away from them.

As far as I know, and I don't know that much, the FPV have no powers, but others may act for a serving police person.

I once saw an (I was not involved in the accident) accident where a young kid on the front of the motor bike went sailing thru the air and landed on the road.

Kid in trouble and mum (driver or motor bike, no helmet, you know the story) was going mad, so I put them in my car, put the flashing warning lights on and drove to the hospital off Pattaya Klang but on the way the kid developed breathing troubles so I put the hand on the horn and went through red lights to get to the hospital.

I asked our team leader what would have happened, as i was a FPV if I had had an accident on the way to the hospital going thru red lights etc, and he said I would be charged like everone else.

So my understanding then was that the FPV have no special powers, but maybe the TPV do and it probably depends on the police officer they are working for.

You know, if you do the right thing, obey the laws, no one should hastle you, especially not a farang.

Small DIN boxes are readily available (try your local electrical emporium, but I got several from HomePro) or just mount a bit of DIN rail in a regular plastic box.

Yes, "marigolds" is UK English for rubber gloves.

You really need to sort out your earthing, it could be the reason you have RCD tripping.

Was on the balcony watching sand unloaded during a storm, saw the flash, heard the SafeTCut 'Clack', then heard the thunder noise. All within a asecond or so.

Just starting to trace out some wires.

Probably need to buy some gold for Mother's Day as I think the helper has quit. I always let her test the actives first.

I think the wiring is wrong.

I can't see an earth coming back from the CU to the earth outside, but, before the tiler tried to lay the tiles, I did notice 3 earth leads coming from inside the house going to 3 earth spikes outside the house.

I asked him 'are they for the 3 phases?' and he said 'yes'.

Didn't give it another thought at the time, but now not too sure what that meant. Why have 3 earths to 3 spikes?

Will have to trace out the wires, but the neutral (supposedly) from the input to the SC terminates on the neutral in the CU but doesn't go to ground as far as I can see.

At least my confidence is coming back and I may one day be able to ditch the flip-flops and marigolds (I presume they are gloves?)

So, are the AVR's downstream from the RCD? If so, would it not be better to place them upstream? Then, whatever is done with N shouldn't be a problem. ?

I think the latest incarnation will have the AVRs right at the supply inlet, before the transfer switch and the Safe-T-Cut. I suspect this will be the best place for them in case there are any odd imbalances whilst they adjust to supply variations.

I've spoken to them-as-knows about 3-phase RCDs and missing / low phases, they agree that there should be no issues. It's more likely poor N-E insulation (short) downstream from the Safe-T-Cut causing the random tripping although transient noise (from lightning) is also a possibility.

By the way, your MOVs should go right at the front too, put them with the AVRs to stop transients getting into the protected wiring.

This morning the lights were dimming, fans really slow, but no safe t cut trip.

No storms or lightning in the area.

I ordered 3 DIL (is that dual in line as in electronic packages?), MOV's to go in the CU. But I'll have to install them in the first mains power entry box with the mains cct breaker in it to be right at the front of everything.

Should I try and cancel the order and order a 3 phase MOV or can you buy small DIL box to mount the 3 MOV's in?

I went today to my local GH and they had the 15kvA ones no mention of the 20 kva, the price quoted was +/- 25k THB. Would this be enough for a whole house system with a meter of 30/100 Single Phase with a Main Breaker of 63 amps ?

Thx

I found GH good.

I bought my 2 10 KVA in Rayong, and they then searched Thailand for one more and found it somewhere and sent it to Roi-et for me to pick up.

They will also order them in for you.

There must be a local electrician you can hire and do it together. Whatever needs to be done, I normally just hang around and make suggestions. Which are always well received.

I let ´em do the manual labour then fix it after they have gone, you know stuff like the TNT (twist ń' tape) joins, connect the earth up stuff like that.....

I have NEVER sen a light fitting in Thailand with an Earth wire yet.....

Next time you're desperate for a trip away and you decide to motor to near Kuchinari in beautiful Isaan, drop in. I've got all mine earthed!

Well I think I have

Crossy,

What computer application do you use to draw up your wiring schematics?

Both arrangements are electrically identical.

I would do it like Page 5 (page 7of the .pdf). Once the N-E link is in place the TN-C supply becomes TNC-S with MEN, from this point onwards the ground wire must remain separate from the Neutral.

Note that the second example (link in the CU) does NOT have any N-E connection inside the CU.

EDIT We need a better photo of the area of those N / E bars. I suspect our sparks has just hooked everything together in there, would explain the interesting tripping.

The Neutral going TO the Safe-T-Cut is linked to the ground, the Neutral coming FROM the Safe-T-Cut must remain separate from the ground connections.

Here are pix of CU with cover removed.

The earth bus is on the rhs.

If I would have wired it, all the black wires would have been neutral wires and all the green wires earth wires. Hopefully the sparky did tne same.

There are no green wires terminating on the neutral bus and there are not black wires terminating on the ground bus.

Here are the pix.

In the last pix you can see the green wire with black tape around the end, this is the link we removed between neutral and earth bars.

[...]

So inputs to the SC are causing it to trip.

The SC is a Safe-T-Cut Gold Special 3 phase model PR40-63A

I just wonder if this model has some other special features other than tripping from the RCD as it does mention RCD protection, Short protection and overload protection. May be they all do.

Thought it might be helpful to post the cover of your Safe-T-Cut PR-40-63A

Where do you have the "Sensitivity" switch set?

Mine is a nicer colour that yours.

Did have the current set at 20 ma but when we did the singlle phase AVR testing connected to the output of the Safe-T-Cut connected to the CU, the SC tripped.

When I reset the curent to 30 ma the SC didn't trip with the AVR's on load, but would not reset after a manual trip.

So the current is set at 30 ma.

Pic 1: Is how we wired the SC

Pic 2: Alternate wiring

Pic 3: Dot point 1 mentions about the rcd time to operate at 0.4 ms so think this dot point 1 is about the rcd protection.

Pic 4: Dot point 3 mentions short circuit protection.

Pic 5: Dot point 4 mentions overload protection

Pic 6: Pix of SC

Pic 7: Pix of SC

Pic 8: Pic of box

Pic 9: Box

Pic 10: Box

Spot on again.

I'll get this cement sorted (sorry, I'll get it as close to sorted as I can), get the gutter on the shed, and crank it up tomorrow. I'll put the AVR's between the mains incoming breaker and the transfer switch.

Thanks again.

Any of our resident sparkies see any reason why connecting 3 single-phase AVRs like this shouldn't work. There's technically no need to link all the neutrals but it keeps everything neat.

AVR connection.jpg

Of course I'm making the (reasonable) assumption that the AVR passes the neutral straight through input to output.

But this needs to be verified on each AVR.

I had a portable AVR that actually passed live straight through and varied the tap connected to the neutral. I re-wired it still works just fine today.

Have attached the pictures of the AVR cover off.

Pix 1: Input phase power connection

Pix 2: Input phase power connection on bottom of pix with the input bus neutral strapped to the output bus. Yellow wire is from the input active and the white wire is attached to the neutral bus.

Pix 3: Output phase power connection

Pix 4: Output phase wire connections

Pix 5: Servo motor and yellow wire from input active to volt and amp meter. The white wire from the neutral also runs to a tap on the transformer

Pix 6: Yellow wire from the volt meter runs back to this tyroid (think I remember that's what it's called)

Pix 7: Bus connecting input and output showing the output

Pix 9: Looking at the unit with cover off.

Pix 10: Front of unit

A thought, how does the 3-phase AVR handle one phase being low voltage (a common issue here) if it has only one servo? Could be worth asking the manufacturer since they seem to be in a talkative mood.

I have little experience of 3-phase RCDs so I don't know how they behave with a phase lost or low, I think they ought to be OK as the vector sum of all the currents through the sensor will still be zero, but I will take advice on this from them as knows, I'll get back to you on that one.

I had the same questions, and that's why I felt there was some difference between the single phase servo controlled unit and the 3 phase servo controlled unit.

May be there is a language translation problem? The information I read said the 3 phase AVR had a servo motor, maybe what it meant is 'has servo motors'.

I think that is probably correct, as it's hard to see how it works (as you have suggested) on a phase being low with only one motor.

Which brings back to the original question, why don't the 3 single phase units work and a 3 phase system?

I will email the supplier and ask questions.

Then take the lid off as you suggest, have a look at the neutral connection, and connect up the the units again on the incoming mains as a test and see what happens for myself.

Thanks again.

In order to work out what's going wrong carlyai we need to know exactly how it was wired when it didn't work, no guessing, wire for wire drawing please.

Apart from possibly power-on surges I can see no reason why using 3 single-phase AVRs wouldn't work as advertised.

Have you investigated the AVRs to verify that the marked neutral really is the neutral (passed directly from input to output)?

EDIT and that the AVRs are all wired the same.

Yes you are correct. An exact wiring diagram is the thing that has been missing a along.

Is it just the safety cut that is stopping the units from working?

Whether upstream or downstream? ie AVR before or after Safety Cut?

I was surprised to read that the Safe-T-Cut was installed upstream of the AVRs.

I thought the original proposed idea was to have the 3-phase heaters tap off the mains first, then come the AVRs, then the transfer Switch, then the Safe-T-Cut and the CU (breaker box).

That was the original proposal.

While I was away back in Aus the sparky installed the 3 AVR's on the mains incoming, before I had a Safe-T-Cut installed.

Evidently it didn't work. Not too sure of the details.

Needs a lot further investigation, exact wiring diagram etc as Crossy rightly suggests.

Is it just the safety cut that is stopping the units from working?

Whether upstream or downstream? ie AVR before or after Safety Cut?

The AVR's were tested downstream of the SC.

The sparky evidently tried the 3 AVR's on the 3 phase input to the house before the CU, before the SC was installed and it didn't work.

I appreciate all the great advice and good information and it has helped me a great deal, but I'm going to buy a 3 phase AVR and install that.

I'll bet you can ^^^

But manufacturers are extremely coy about suggesting that you can do anything out of the ordinary with their products due to potential warranty / legal issues should something go wrong.

If you pop the lid on one of the units I'll bet that the incoming and outgoing neutrals are just connected together (possibly via the breaker).

No point feeding the water heaters from the AVR, they don't need it, just means you pay for an AVR that's far bigger than you need.

What sort of cash are you looking for? (each)

Yeah the manufacturers are coy, but I think they could be correct.

The thing that has me wondering is that the single phase AVR's have one servo adjusting the transformer voltage to suppy the phase, but the 3 phase AVR's only have one servo motor as well.

Connecting these 3 servos or I suppose auto transformers could be the problem. Really need a circuit. Haven't taken the lid of yet.

It's very difficult to rewire the house without a lot of mess and the to get the water heaters repositioned, and the lovely off-sider has a real hate on her fellow tradesmen. Again, we've just had our garage built and, even after a lot of talking and marks on posts and cement levels all marked, the cement was 50 cm out. They're back today to fix it.

The bit about selling the AVR's was a bit of a joke. But I can sell if you want.

Going to order the Lioa SH3 30000 from Global House or Vietnam this week. Global House Rayong is where I bought two of the units.

On the Safe-T-Cut tripping.

The SC trips when the village power fails or blips. The houses on the main road still have power when our lane loses power, so it may be the phase supplying the houses about 50 m away on the main road is different to the phase supplying the village houses in the land where I get my power.

May be losing one phase of the 3 phase to the house trips the SC. Or there is a spike in voltage, or the SC sees it as an 'over voltage' before the village power fails.

I was a volunteer when I lived in Pattaya.

I think the reason the unit was first started was because the Pattaya police were completely overwhelmed, and it was started to 'help'.

I only worked at the Pattaya Police Station on the help desk.

There were usually 3 or 4 of us who could speak Thai and German, Chinese, Aussie, etc.

We had the phone numbers of someone we could call to speak to the tourists in their own native language.

Mostly we helped with people upset over traffic violations, (no international licence etc).

We also dealt with jet ski settlements or trying to get the price lower for jet ski damage. Just advising.

One Aussie family on holidays came in with the same old problem, rented jet ski and had to pay some excessive extortion for damages.

Trouble is that they had signed the insurance paper that listed all the costs etc if there was damage, and they agreed that the photos before and after they rented the jet ski were correct. No damage before and damage after. We all know a scam.

So the problem was they could get a lawyer and fight the case in court, or try and negotiate a settlement price on the day and forget the incident and return to their family holiday.

A price was negotiated and they returned to their holiday. Not a great result but probably the best for them.

Don't think the FPV handle jet ski incidents any more.

We had another guy come in all flustered and scared and had these big red welts around his neck, and said he had just been hung by other farangs in Pattaya. We didn't touch anything like that but advised him to see the real police on duty.

Another Aussie guy refused to pay his stay at the hospital as he did not believe he had been in intensive care for 7 days.

Seems like he was a diabetic, went into a coma, and was sent to the hospital by the hotel staff who found him collapsed in his room.

Because we could speak English we tried to help him, but unfortunately he said he was going back to his room to get the money, and left.

So, we do try and help.

I've just gone thru the process of installing 3 single phase 10000 KVA Lioa AVR's on my 3 phase system and it didn't work.

I installed them between the Safe-T-Cut (SC) and the consumer unit.

Installed one AVR on phase 1 with no load, all OK.

Installed one AVR on phase 2 with no load, all OK.

Didn't install the 3rd AVR as thought for testing two would be enough.

Adjusted the SC to 30 ma and applied load to AVR 1 all OK.

Applied load to AVR 2 all OK.

This is with our 3 phase water heaters switched off.

Manually tripped the SC but it would not reset with the AVR's connected.

On another thread Crossy explained why he thought that was.

I found out last night, that while I was away for 3 months the Sparky did try to put the 3 single phase AVR's on the incoming mains before we had the SC installed and it didn't work.

Emailed Lioa and they said that you can't put 3 single phase AVR's on a 3 phase system but have to use a 3 phase AVR.

As a Guess:

It may be to do with the three phase AVR having only one servo motor and the single phase AVR's having one servo motor but when you install them across the 3 phase mains there are 3 servo motors adjusting the transformer taps for the best phase voltage.

If the 3 phase AVR worked on the same principal it would have 3 servo motors, so this is my guess as to why it doen't work, or it may work if you didn't have a SC installed.

To try and be clearer, I am saying the 3 single phase AVR's across my 3 phase supply didn't work because it tripped my Safe-T-Cut.

Just had an email from the Lioa people Vietnam about my AVR's.

Their technical team informs me that I can' t connect 3 single phase AVR's to 3 phase incoming, I have to use a 3 phase AVR.

I suspect the response from Germany about installing 3 single phase AVR's feeding their 3 phase multi-point heaters will be the same.

Any one want to buy 3 single phase AVR's?

First hand. Our friend has a guest room and whenever the shower is a little too hot or too long (not sure which) it trips the RCBO. Fortunately, it's always at the end of the shower.

Bugger! Thought I was on to something there.

Is the tripping RCBO the one on the hot water unit and not the Safe-T-Cut protecting all the house?

Our two units never trip when we have a shower, or when the visiting grand kids at Songkran had a bath (bit longer use of the water heater).

I'll have to keep looking, and thinking, but will keep the multi-point units switched off at the moment. Spose the mrs can stand a cold shower at the moment as it's only about 38 degrees.

As a non - electrician, I'd be a bit worried about the RCD tripping when they have a shower. May be a genuine fault trip.

Yeah - the RCBO that trips is the whole house main breaker. So, a bit annoying when we visit and I take my shower. The first time it was like <deleted>? But, after narrowing down to the guest bath breaker, we just turn that off and wait 30 min or so and re-set.

Great. Thanks for that.

Since I turned off the multi-point heaters I have had no further trips, but the weather has not been too stormy around here at the moment and the village has not lost power since.

We'll be driving to Roi-et about 100 km away in the next couple of days, and it's sure to trip when we're away.

I ordered 3 of those MOV's to put in the consumer unit to hopefully help protect against power spikes from storms and we should be able to pick them up soon.

First hand. Our friend has a guest room and whenever the shower is a little too hot or too long (not sure which) it trips the RCBO. Fortunately, it's always at the end of the shower.

Bugger! Thought I was on to something there.

Is the tripping RCBO the one on the hot water unit and not the Safe-T-Cut protecting all the house?

Our two units never trip when we have a shower, or when the visiting grand kids at Songkran had a bath (bit longer use of the water heater).

I'll have to keep looking, and thinking, but will keep the multi-point units switched off at the moment. Spose the mrs can stand a cold shower at the moment as it's only about 38 degrees.

As a non - electrician, I'd be a bit worried about the RCD tripping when they have a shower. May be a genuine fault trip.

And perhaps isolate your multipoint water heaters. They seem to spike a RCD for some reason - steam maybe? - otherwise don't know why but they do it.

Thanks.

Sorry for my slowness, but are you saying that multi-point water heater cause RCD tripping?

Sorry again, but have you just read this or had first-hand experience?

Since we threw the breakers for the water heaters, we have had no more trouble, but no big storms close by and no village loss of power.

We mounted breakers near the water heaters so we could reposition the wiring to the input of the SC if needed, and the way the mrs is behaving at the moment I think I'll just bypass the SC forever!

Look for N-E shorts, look for any neutrals that get back to the neutral before the Safe-T-Cut.

Both will cause intermittent tripping.

All the neutrals for the house wiring are terminated in the CU.

Will have to think more about this. Thanks.

More likely the 'short' put current on a neutral or ground path of a circuit that is wired in after the SC, causing it to trip.

You may find you need to isolate all of your 'outdoor' circuits to their own common/separate Safe-T-Cut as outdoor and wet circuits tend to experience a lot of unexpected conditions.

Is your CU servicing both pre- and post- SC circuits? I'm confused on this.

The three phase mains from the lane come along the top of the driveway fence and into a metal box. Inside the metal box is a 3 pole breaker that the mains terminate in.

The neutral is tied to an earth spike and then the 4 wires run underground to a gen set transfer switch on the side of the house. There is another earth spike at the transfer switch before the wires enter the house. They then run thru the cavity inside the house to the Safety Cut and then to the consumer unit.

Before we put the SC in the bore and tank pumps were connected to a circuit on the CU.

When we installed the SC we ran the pumps from the main 3 pole breaker on the driveway fence to a RCD just used for the pumps.

So the CU is servicing pre- SC circuits, minus the pumps.

I just had a thought!

The mains 3 phase come into a breaker, then routed to bore and tank pumps on a 30 A RCD.

It also goes to the house thru a change-over switch to the SC and then to the consumer unit.

When the tank float switch operated and shorted out the phase to the pumps, the RCD on the pumps operated and also did the SC.

So inputs to the SC are causing it to trip.

The SC is a Safe-T-Cut Gold Special 3 phase model PR40-63A

I just wonder if this model has some other special features other than tripping from the RCD as it does mention RCD protection, Short protection and overload protection. May be they all do.