Rewired - The Saga Begins

[Metropolitian]

The air is dry, the sun is high.

It is Sunday, electric is cheap.

Aircon has cooled the room,

battery bank charged.

 

All good !

 

It was been :

Planned for weeks, months.. Wiringplans drawed

Expanded and shrunked. Binned and drawed again.

The need.. the futureproof.. the overkill..

 

The important things: safety, safety and .. safety.

The first safety is a isolation switch.

The second safety is earth leakage breaker, RCBO.

The third safety is isolated group for the DC inverter.

 

Why that third safety? At mains power cut there is still energy on that group.

 

Ready!

 

The items:

And a lot of cables, screws, plugs, tubes,...

 

So

 

This need to be gone.. soon.

But wait, the incoming wires..

 

No not those... but those from outside to the (old) Consumer Unit.

 

Cutted the wire.. well.. tried to cut but couldn't find my Knipex

so went for the hacksaw to cut these 16sq.mm wires

Wait.. safety? Life wire?  Oh yeah right.

 

Outside then.

Unplugging the L out wire.

But before that, I checked the wires inside, those 16sq.mm wires.

Black is neutral, grey is Life/Hot.

Which is weird, not ANSI, IEC, BS, NEN, DIN.. but anyway the incoming wire inside

grey one I shrink a red heatshrink tube.

 

Prepared the '''''''''''''isolation'''''''''' switch, which is really just a breaker but now a fine isolator switch

(And no, the fuses are not 60amp anymore)

 

 

 

A day earlier, on Saturday, preparation for the placement of the new CU's were made.

They are right beside the incoming wires.

Yes that looked about right, with another CU under that I still have room for the (moveable) rack.

 

The Smartmeter is positioned, not protected by a breaker, but fused 120amp.

It stays on, always and the only thing that can shut it off is the isolator or power outage from outside.

The cable to the old CU that was cut off is bypassed trough a 63amp main breaker.

It is still feeding the rest of the house.

The old CU will be replaced by another CU which will serve the bed room and lights for shower, attic and portal.

The first floor will get his own CU too, which will be mounted outside the home (still under roof).

 

This room has only one socket, at the other side next to the door.

This is my workspace, mancave, office, hail, island, whatever you can call the place that is

yours and just only YOURS.

It need sockets, plenty ! Starting in this corner. With wires 2.5sq.mm hooked on a 16 amp breaker.

I choose the style, ala TIS, with the earth prong up side which is good for 16AMP.

Other plugs that I will give a smaller breaker I will mount with the earth prong down, Danish style but with a sad smile.

 

Under this socket will come another socket but 32 amp.

(Those red plugs). For the movable rack. The breaker is seen in the

bottom CU, red colored double pole 32 amp.

Next to that is a green colored 1p 20 amp, for the air-con.

 

Currently the breaker for the air-con.

The left one is from the old air-con.

It was directly taped from the incoming wires.

If you turned off the old CU, this breaker was is still alive.

 

Hung up the inverter, connected the second main breaker (50) to the system.

The first CU is just for the Smartmeter.

The second CU gives space for the two main breakers and the group for serving wall electricity in this room protected by RCBO.

The third CU has two groups, one for the AC and 32Amp socket and other (RCBO protected) is the for the Inverter and (future) powerwall.

One issue is missing a neutral bar in the third CU for the two breakers, they are connected with jumper wires from the RCBO neutral inlet.

All (patch)wires are 4sq.mm. Except for the wires from the isolator to the meter

and from the meter to the 2nd CU earthbusbar / main breakers, those are 16sq.mm.

From the earthbusbar to the main breakers neutral in alu. 10sq.mm

At the out of the breakers all 2.5sq.mm.

 

Ongrid Inverter and the DC box 'CU'.

Inverter and the voltmeter (with built in DC breaker and Surge Arrester)

It was dark already, need to wait for tomorrow to see it in action.

 

That DC 'CU' box was another project.

 

Lights will get another system, partly trough a battery system.

And the main lights will be connected to the group in the next room (other RCBO group).

That way, when in a room and mischief equipment will trip the breakers you wouldn't be thrown into the dark.

 

 

 

- The Saga Continues.

 

[Crossy]

A man after my own heart, we just love boxes, meters and flashing lights, I reckon it's the latent Steve Zodiac in us ????

 

Meanwhile Crossy Mission Control has acquired another DIN box (it's for an upgraded version of my power monitor, the old one will be retired), Madam has asked when it will be "fenced in".

 

By the way, in the absence of cable shears an old pair of Madam's secateurs works very well. Actually they are "old" now I've used them to cut cable having left the proper tool in the house

 

I mount outlets with the earth on the left, neutral at the top. Safe if something conductive drops down the back and the cable from the Haco plugs exits at the bottom.

 

[Metropolitian]

11 hours ago, Crossy said:

flashing lights,

 

Postman Pat just came along with a package.

 

Colored lights colored switches so colored wire tags for the completion !

 

11 hours ago, Crossy said:

Steve Zodiac

And Brains ???? I have the glasses for it ????

 

11 hours ago, Crossy said:

I mount outlets with the earth on the left, neutral at the top.

Same here.

Many outlets are with the earth right, so the life is on top. Don't know the exact reason why it was like that.

But adapting the Thai mind, flood will get to the live at last

New sockets put by me and horizontal placed have the earth left.

 

11 hours ago, Crossy said:

Safe if something conductive drops down the back

From back then, when the covers were mostly metal.

 

Earth up:

If my memory serves right, this practice was mainly used in the hospitals. Not just for the metal plate but anything else.

If the plug was not fully inserted this caused dangerous situations, as you said anything conductive could drop on the bare prongs.

 

After the introduction of sleeved prongs they did the earth back to downside.

 

For residential use another opinions were made, when people stepped/tripped on wires, the earth prong was supposed to disconnect at last.

 

In my country this is not an issue as the earth is on both side, up and down. (Schuko outlets)

Hospital sockets have separate earth prongs for the equipment that need extra earthning for safety (I think this is the case almost everywhere)

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited January 20, 2020 by Metropolitian
' Didn't meant to hit that [save] yet'