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I can see the spark who put in those RCD's Couldn't Be Arsed to put them in alphabetical order.
RCD Connection Agnostic?
- Thread starter DIYWell
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That's a good one.
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Like to return the favour every now and again!
Careful, there - 'twas me who 'put them in'
However, the reason was historical, so you can blame someone in the past! By the time I became involved, everything downstream of the RCDs (switch-fuses, distribution circuits, many CUs and countless final circuits) had already been labelled using the A/B/C convention. As a result, having the RCDs in reverse alphabetical order was far less messy than would have been the case had I crossed all the cables over one another to get the alphabetical order correct!
Goodness only knows why the phases have always been identified as A/B/C (I've never seen that before), but whoever 'started' it simply followed the A/B/C identification which originally existed (and still does) on the meter tails!
Kind Regards, John
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Looks like you have a touch of CDO.
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The magnet absolutely stayed powered until the lever was moved to 'OFF', however when wired correctly the magnet released with the load. The RCD was marked correctly as to which was supply and load.
I can't argue with your experience, but that sounds bizarre/wrong, since it makes little sense. Why should the actuating magnet remain powered after the load (and, together with it, any faults) been disconnected by the device - unless, of course, the electronics were faulty?
Kind Regards, John
No No. When connected correctly [power to 'in' and load from 'out'] the device will trip correctly and the electronics & magnet will lose power to release correctly. However when powered from the wrong side [power to 'out' and load from'in'] the device will trip correctly and isolate the load correctly but the electronics is still powered [directly from the incoming power] and the magnet is still powered, bootstrapped I guess.
Yes - but if the (still powered) electronic circuitry is working correctly, it should switch off activation of the magnet as soon as the L-N current imbalance, due to a fault, disappears because the load had been disconnected from the supply (hence was not drawing any current at all, 'unbalanced' or otherwise), shouldn't it?
Kind Regards, John
I can only guess it's bootstrapped to force release, then power going off will automatically release the magnet. It seems like a fairly obvious solution to me.
You mean 'electronically latched'? If so, then, yes, that would result in the behaviour you describe. However, although I may be missing something, I don't see anything particularly 'obvious' about doing it that way, since there would never be a need for the 'magnet'/solenoid to remain activated after it has mechanically triggered the trip mechanism.
Kind Regards, John
I'm sure you're right in most, if not all, cases (today), and some manufacturers actually say that explicitly. However, it's not impossible that there are, or have been in the past, some for which that is less true, for reasons such as SUNRAY has postulated.
Kind Regards, John
So for your device, the the manufacturer had marked the casing indicating an in and out, so direction mattered. Was your RCD possibly a RCBO? They are asymmetric and can only be fitted one way round in a CU. Just a thought.
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