Din Rail & Consumer unit together questions?

[r136dg]

I read a lot of your material Crossy (Thanks!) and have all circuits on paper.PEA will be supplying us with 15/45 single phase & I'm fine tuning breakers & boxes layout now. Here's what I have at this stage and would greatly appreciate any suggestions.

I would like to use these 2 plastic/pvc din rail boxes & a Saftey Cut or Gsafe consumer unit. 1st the smaller din rail for a 63amp dual power feed breaker (for solar & or generator down the road) and a surge protector. They will take up minimum 7 slots which is the reasoning for not using the longer din rail alone. This is the only box where the Neutral will join a Earth (ground) buss bar. Power from here will either go to & through the long din rail box, to the RCBO consumer unit; or it will feed the longer din rail & consumer unit individually (suggestions)?. The long din rail box will have a 63amp main with 11 breakers with space left for the future.

Reasoning for the seperate Saftey Cut or Gsafe consumer unit is to supply bathrooms, kitchen & some outdoor areas with RCBO protection that has sensitivity adjusting capabilities (I think 10mA would be appropriate). If anything trips it will not black out the whole house, far from it. The consumer unit will also have a 63amp main and 6 or 8 breaker slots. At this point I'm set up for using 5.

I hope there's enough info here to comment on & appreciate any feedback.

Thanks!

 

[Crossy]

Sketch out what you want to do, simple line drawings on paper or use Visio or the like and post here. You'll need to do it anyway for your contractor and it will be useful to explain to the PEA inspector when his head explodes at something a bit out of the ordinary :)

 

I see no real issues with what you want to do but we may be able to rationalise how many breakers you end up using :)

 

Try  to ensure you have a single point of isolation that kills all the power to the installation.

 

EDIT If you have a look at the Safe-T-Cut consumer units some (if not all) are DIN rail so you could extract the adjustable bits and streamline your installation :)

[r136dg]

7 minutes ago, Crossy said:

it will be useful to explain to the PEA inspector when his head explodes at something a bit out of the ordinary :)

LOL

 

I was planning on drawing it all out but I may need a couple days. Waiting on delivery of the main dual power breaker & surge protector (not sure how they're wired yet).

I will also look at more of the saftey-cut consumer units (haven't seen any din railed yet). Is the saftey-cut brand a quality choice for what's available here? There seems to be several.

Thanks!

[Crossy]

Safe-T-Cut are the "original and best" of the adjustable units.

 

If you don't mind non-adjustable 30mA and (less common) 10mA RCDs in DIN mount are reasonably readily available from the big names (ours are ABB).

 

 

[mistaphix]

I too am at a very similar stage of final design and installation, but alas limited by whats on the shelves around Samui.
A. What brand and where did you source the plastic din boxes? Schneider has discontinued their range. My ultimate solution was a split plastic box, am hard pressed finding many choices, ABB & Haco are the exceptions, stretching my budget and not on shelf...

B. Gsafe CU, am unaware of the product and google tells me nothing, more info please.
C. Surge Protector: i found a budget priced 'Sense' brand DIN product, or i need to order Schneider QOSPD for a push in box. Any product info for something to sit with a RCBO main breaker to protect some sensitive and expensive equipment rated at around 56mA , (8 devices at approx 7mA) + a few other sundry circuits 
Will endeavour to publish layout tonight for everybody's entertainment .

[r136dg]

What's on the shelves & knowledge of staff near the shelves is no doubt, very limited!

Plastic din's were from China, as is the surge protector (don't have it yet). I may have seen some plastic din's at Do Home but can't recall for sure. So much going on right now my brain housing's memory stick is overloaded.

Read what Crossy said about Saftey-Cut. I couldn't find any reviews on Gsafe's either, nothing. The only thing I like about the Gsafe's is you can get them without mcb's (load your own behind the RCBO). The rcbo's sensitivity is adjustable as is Saftey-Cuts & it has a 5 year guarantee (whatever that's worth).

I'm sure others will chime in, but I understand there's good SPD's available from R&D for at the device protection. I haven't got that far yet.

[r136dg]

Mistaphix, I don't know what chain stores you have down there, but I was in Chiang Mai Thai Watsadoo today & seen a line of ABB plastic din rail boxes. I was also in Do Home where there was none, but I did see the Saftey-Cuts Crossy mentioned on din rails.