3 phase single phase. help needed crossy

[carlyai]

No additional Earth Ground rods on the Water Pumps?

[carlyai]

No additional Earth Ground rods on the Water Pumps?

No not at the moment.

The 2 pumps were taken off the house consumer unit supply when I had the sc tripping problem.

They are at present ( work in progress) fed through a RCD breaker feed taken off the main incoming breaker in the box on the fence.

[Forkinhades]

^ Your earthing arrangements are fine, you certainly do not need to bang in any more rods. Just make sure your final circuits have a separate cpc.

[Crossy]

CPC ^^^ = Circuit Protective Conductor = ground wire

[carlyai]

It's been a good few days now without a SafeTCut trip. Had a small black- out yesterday morning, and no trip.

No huge storms as yet overhead, but been a few around and not trip.

I think the tripping problem has been solved.

Thanks again for all the help.

Now back to getting the AVR's on line and seeing what I can do to get rid of all those earth rods.

Crossy, thanks heaps and I have been prompted by another house wirer who has followed your advice to the letter and the question is: why did the sparky put in the 3 earth rods under the transfer switch?

Why not just put in one?

What inside electrical information do Thai electricians have that the rest of those-who-know don't?

[Crossy]

Did you actually locate and fix any issues that could have been causing the tripping?

Why 3 rods? - Lord knows, perhaps he tested the ground resistance and found it too high and added the extra rods to get it reliable.

Nah he thinks 3-phase needs 3 rods.

Either way it can't hurt

[carlyai]

Did you actually locate and fix any issues that could have been causing the tripping?

Why 3 rods? - Lord knows, perhaps he tested the ground resistance and found it too high and added the extra rods to get it reliable.

Nah he thinks 3-phase needs 3 rods.

Either way it can't hurt

Been awhile on this one, but my biggest thanks for you Crossy and your guiding influence and expERT knowledge.

Last time I missed your comment about 'did you actually locate etc', yes I did.

He had wired the SafeTCut up wrongly, even though I sat with him and kept saying 'have you wired it like in the manufacturers diagram?', and he said yes.

On now to complete the AVR's story.

I contacted the makers of the AVR and the makers of the multi point heaters about installing 3 seperate AVR's.

Here are the replies from the heater people.

Removed due to personal information

Nice people to deal with but as Crossy said, probably sit on the fence, and that's what they did.

After Crossy's diagram of the 3 AVR's connections, I couldn't see how connecting 3 single AVR's on a 3 phase system wouldn't work either.

So yesteday I connected the AVR's on the 3 incoming phases, but with no load, and everything worked fine all day and night.

So today I connected the AVR's inputs from the 3 phases comming in and the outputs to the change over switch to the house consumer unit.

This is 'testing' wiring not the finished installation.

I progressively increased the load to the 3 phases and the AVR's worked as they should.

Finally I switched on the 3 phase water heaters, one at a time, and all good.

I'll leave it for a couple of days and then wire it in properly.

Have I learnt a lot this time!

Thanks very much for all who contributed and expecially Crossy.

[Crossy]

Looks pretty permanent to me

Standard Thai installation, no covers - check, leads coming out through where the cover isn't - check, all wires the same colour - check, plenty of tape - check

Great that it's working.

EDIT I've removed the Word files as they contain personal information, if you want to edit and PM them to me I'll drop them back into the post.

EDIT 2 And thanks for posting the update, we now know that what should have worked in theory does in fact work in practice. Could be useful for others following a similar route.

[carlyai]

Looks pretty permanent to me

Standard Thai installation, no covers - check, leads coming out through where the cover isn't - check, all wires the same colour - check, plenty of tape - check

Great that it's working.

EDIT I've removed the Word files as they contain personal information, if you want to edit and PM them to me I'll drop them back into the post.

EDIT 2 And thanks for posting the update, we now know that what should have worked in theory does in fact work in practice. Could be useful for others following a similar route.

If you're still there.

I've only seen the Thai electrician install joiners, and tape them like the one in the pic.

So if I have to join a power cable I would do it the same way as I don't know any better.

Is there a better way?

Also, is there a way to differentiate the colours (for 3 phases) of the cables, when 1 x 25 m2 is just black?

I did/do have trouble identifying the phases as the wires are all black as you have said.

Should I tape the wire with yellow rings, and blue rings and, well black is black.

Thanks for the edit.

[Crossy]

In-line butt crimps and adhesive loaded heatshrink or jointers tape (3M "Scotch 23") is a neat and permanent joint. Yes, all items available in Thailand. Avoid normal PVC "insulating tape" as it tends to go gooey or fall off (or both), Scotch 23, if applied correctly, becomes a single mass after a few days, needs a knife to remove. http://www.farnell.com/datasheets/316754.pdf

Bangkok Cable do THW in Black, Blue, Brown, Grey, Green/Yellow plus "other colours", but I've only ever seen black in-stock, at least in the bigger sizes. Coloured tape is indeed the alternative.

[carlyai]

I've cleaned up one side of the AVR project.

But not yet cleaned up the other side of the AVR project.

[Crossy]

Looks a decent job there

And that's a decent pile of empties, the AVR saga has evidently driven you to drink.

Isn't it amazing how "no way this can work" from the Thai sparks turns into a perfectly functional system when hooked up in the "stupid farang" way