dimmers....

Talk Electrician Forum

Help Support Talk Electrician Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

the doctor

Part P Doctor ™
Joined
Mar 1, 2008
Messages
580
Reaction score
1
good evening members,

something for you to ponder......

a circuits maximum Zs is based upon a 230V scenario....

so if you have your lounge lights dimmed to a voltage of say 80V and then say a rodent chews through a dimmed cable then you have.....

1 reduced voltage

2 fault to earth

3 reduced earth fault current

4 disconnection times out the window

5 said house burns

i know it is a long shot, but perfectly feasibleX(

so in theory, my theory, a circuit containing dimmers should be on rcd fire protection no matter what the mechanical protection on any install:coat

 
Most new wiring, the switch drop will be less than 50mm deep in the wall and require 30mA RCD protection anyway. Maybe they knew you'd have mice on your dimmed cables!!!! ; -)

 
hi msb,

i tend to see things in the future.....

in the 80s we fitted showers and around 86 the triton T70 came out with a plastic tank.

before that all showers were all copper inside...

i looked at this and wondered about the scenario of....

1 fault occurs on shower

2 earth(puny 2.5 one) blows off during fault

3 shower sits there live asa shock risk

so what did i do? well i used to run a wire from the earth terminal of the shower to the nut on the water inlet, insid ethe shower unit, popping an earth clamp on there.

that was years before 601 ( special locations and all that jazz) in the 16th..

the worst part is that before the 17th came in, i wrote telling what i thought should be in the regs and got totally ignored as usual- would anyone like to know my "suggestion" and wording of the amendment?

 
hi apache,

i will tell you.....

firstly i note you are in t'dales.... i work in hawes quite a lot, is that near you?

now to the reg...

i wrote in to complain about the number of open ring faults that i come across having not been tested. the final straw was a job i attended with a hall socket papered overheadbang

my proposed reg should be installed in chapter 61 stating

" all ring final circuits shall be fully tested before final connection to the supply"

i thought it was simple, to the point and a dead cert for my immortality but alas it was ignored.....

probably something to do with the fact that i do not have letters behind my nameROTFWL

alan

 
hi apache,i will tell you.....

firstly i note you are in t'dales.... i work in hawes quite a lot, is that near you?
I live about 8 miles from Hawes. :D

What do you get up to there?

Your reg makes common sense to me :D

 
cheers for that apache,

i am there from the 31st august doin a jobbie.....you will find me staying at "the board",would you like to come up?(top secret project)

besides i will tell you all about sooty the 20 year old cat who never visited a vet! :p

 
cheers for that apache,i am there from the 31st august doin a jobbie.....you will find me staying at "the board",would you like to come up?(top secret project)

besides i will tell you all about sooty the 20 year old cat who never visited a vet! :p
What use to me is a healthy cat?!

We are running some farmer training last week of August so will be quite busy some of the week. How long are you about for?

:)

 
hi apache

i will be around for perhaps a week.......i would like to meet....it is hard work boozing in the board:p

 
Most new wiring, the switch drop will be less than 50mm deep in the wall and require 30mA RCD protection anyway. Maybe they knew you'd have mice on your dimmed cables!!!! ; -)
Trouble with that msb is that Dimmers are used quite extensively in non domestic properties also so Additional RCD protection Reg will not necessarily apply...so they will not be installed ; \

Hi Doc. I can visualise your scenario, some dimmers do have quick blow internal fuses which maybe would help here....they all have electronic circuits which I think would be quite quickly damaged by the fault to earth and" Blow" thereby clearing the fault

by default [Pun].

I Do appeciate the point about RCD ing dimmer circuits as long as not too many installed ......Leakage currents from filter circuits etc

...My general thoughts only here. others maybe well expand on this

Note : Early post by me today....First job of the day not till 11.30 am

could have stayed in bed a bit longer :z :z

 

Latest posts

Top