3phase to 240v

In no particular order ...

Not sure if this has been explicitly stated before, or if you'd twigged, but for your purposes you can largely think of the 3 phase supply in terms of 3off single phase supplies. For premises with a single phase supply, all that happens is that the DNO picks one phase and feeds that in from the street - feeding different premises from different phases so the loads get balanced.
There is 415V between circuits on different phases, but that's not usually a practical consideration*.

For the quantity of services you are looking at, you will may be looking at it being done in trunking (or cable tray if it's hidden) and conduit. Adding additional circuits is relatively easy later on if everything is surface mounted - it does become more of an issue if you want concealed wiring which would require chasing out for solid walls. Rather than having trunking at a high level and lots of conduits dropping down the walls, it may (depending on your layout) be worth considering dado trunking so you'd just have the outlets (whether "industrial" sockets, 13A sockets, or wired connection plates) on the trunking or just below it.

Multi compartment trunking would then give you somewhere to run other cabling (data, av etc).

Looking back a few posts, I'm thinking again about those dedicated 10A supplies for the treadmills. It's hard to see why they need dedicated supplies other than the manufacturer doing a CYA exercise. 8A startup isn't a problem, and 3-4A running is definitely not a problem for several machines running on one 32A circuit (either ring on 2.5mm cable or radial on 4mm cable) with either 13A sockets or fused spurs (FCU, Fused Connection Unit). 6 units on one circuit is only 18-24A, and 8A for starting shouldn't be a problem - again, as long as you don't have a number of users carefully synchronising their starts. it's hard to see why 4 should not be OK under pretty well any circumstances. That cuts down the number of circuits down somewhat - from a planned 20 to perhaps only 4 or 5, with a commensurate reduction in cost.

I think an FCU per machine would count as a dedicated supply. And if you think about it, once you get back to your main distribution board, then all the supplies come together anyway !


Now, as to doing some of the work yourself. You need to find your lecky and discuss the project with him first. Many will be happy for you to act as labourer - provided they think you will be a help rather than a hindrance. What they are likely to take a very dim view of is coming to a job to find it's half done without any prior discussion, and they are expected to sign it off.
If chasing is required, then I think you'll find there's no objection whatsoever to you doing that yourself - but discuss things first.


* It may be if lighting is split across phases - then there may be 415V between wires in the back of the switch, but that's really only of concern to (hopefully) competent electricians who should be aware of this risk.
 
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Hi Simon

I'd thought to surface mount all the electrics in metal conduit/trunking with the plugs on the conduit itself (some will be on the floor behind the treadmills making it easy to plug them in).

Initially I'd thought to have 3 domestic-type consumer units (1 off eAch phase) and have a 16A mcb for each of the treadmills which would connect to the CU (eg 24 treadmills = 8 treadmills to each CU wired to a 16A MCB). I'd thought that to be a neater solution with only 3 wires going back to the main DB (1/phase). Can you see any problems with that idea or maybe a "neater" approach?

Would the above work as an alternative to your suggestion of various units per circuit? It's just that the manufacturers are adamant about "dedicated supplies".

I'd thought the same thing re when it all gets back to the main DB too...

Thanks again!
 
Are you designing this installation now? Why would you want domestic-type consumer units in a commercial installation?

Having loads of stupid little submains dotted about all over the place is an awful way to do the job.

Someone has already mentioned dado trunking.
 
I'd thought that the domestic CU would let me have dedicated lines (each treadmill would have its own MCB) closer to the treadmills rather than running a wire/dedicated line all the way to the main DB (which is quite far from where the treadmills will go).

In an existing gym I look at today they've run 3 phase power to a secondary DB locAted near the treadmills and then run the dedicated lines to there. Would this be a better solution or would this still be a submain approach that you'd rather avoid?

Are there any problems that can arise with submains or is it just not your preferred approach? I'd thought having a submain would cut down on a few 100m worth of wiring and so save on labour and material...

We are designing it now...we know what we need but want to understand our options, etc and the advice we've been given so far has really helped! :)
 
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You're forgetting the added expense of the submains cables and extra CUs.

Is your electrician happy for you to design this?
 
Multiple boards on sub mains vs one big board really depends on the situation. Lots of circuits over a large area tends to favour local boards to reduce the amount of cabling, while fewer circuits over a smaller area favours one main board.
It's something where a bit of experience pays dividends as someone with a fair bit of experience will have an "instinct" about which is best. Other than that, you'd need to weigh up the pro and cons each way. If your treadmills are going to be a long way from the main board, and they are going to have separate supplies, then a sub board is probably the right way to go.

I realise it's difficult for you to challenge a manufacturer - it's something that needs some balls and the technical knowledge to back it up - but I'd be asking the sales rep round for a meeting and discuss the supplies. Then when the "must be dedicated 16A supplies" bit comes up, ask him why his machines are so crap and couldn't they afford to employ someone capable of designing a decent electrical machine ? I suspect there would be an interesting conversation after that :evil:
But to do that would require whoever is making the challenge to understand what they are talking about. Even then, I'd be looking up trip curves for breakers and fuses before I went in.

I believe that in terms of circuit protection, you are probably more likely to trip a 16A type B MCB than blow a 13A BS1363 fuse due to switch on surges. So an FCU with 13A fuse probably qualifies as a dedicated supply regardless of whether it's a single outlet on a radial or one of several on an RFC. If FCUs off a ring is not considered a dedicated supply, then neither is a radial off an MCB in a sub board !
 

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