earth leakage tester

[GLENNSPARK]

can you fault it gelensparks for the price

no....seems ok...so far...lol....as has been said here already...just keep an eye on the batterys....i suppose anything has a finite lifespan...but lets face it.....a lot of stuff is now made in chinaland...or thereabouts...

 

[GLENNSPARK]

I have tried it on all settings, starting with large loads and going down to a few mA. It works a treat. The only bit that seems a bit flimsy is the plastic cover over the screen, but other than that not bad (just don't expect Megger type build quality).
If you make a flexi ext lead (about 1 metre long) and remove a short length of the sheath, you can then either leave all inner cores exposed to clamp line (for testing loads) and earth (for earth leakage), or you can re-sheath line and neutral with just the earth cable exposed for testing leakage current. Obviously, unsheathed live conductors must be inside a suitable enclosure so up to you how you want to make it safe (if you do).

got some leads like that made up for it already guitar...

 

[sparc]

On the strength of this and a number of other threads I bought myself a Di-Log DL5607 - £138 include VAT and delivery from Instrotech Ltd. It arrived within a couple of days. Comes in it's own soft case, plus some leads for V measurements.

I bought it specifically for helping track down some problems with RCD trips. I've only had it about a week, so only used it a few times, but here are some 'results' :-

1. Called back to a customer for who'd I'd installed new CU and couple of RCD protected sub-mains in outbuildings. The CU was nearly all RCBO - just a couple of circuits on an RCD. Customer was getting occasional trips on 32A cooker circuit - twice in two weeks - but I didn't hear a clear cause in terms of linking usage of cooker to trip.

It didn't sound like it was being overloaded, and my IR tests during the CU install had shown circuit clean end to end. So I opened up cooker switch and put Di-Log on the CPC between switch and cooker and livened up the circuit. Di-Log showed <0.1 mA, so I started turning on the rings, one by one. Leakage current on CPC climbed to about 5mA but that was it. Then I turned on oven and the leakage started to climb > 5mA >10mA >15mA. So I then turned everything off and put only the oven on - same climb of leakage current until just over 19mA the RCBO tripped. (I'd ramp tested the RCBO during install and my Megger said it was 25mA.)

What was really useful was being able to show the customer exactly what was happening, and this helped explain why the circuit was tripped. It was an old cooker that is going to be replaced, so we were both happy!

2. Second time was when doing a quote for a couple buying a house. Checked out the 16 Edition CU then put Di-Log on the main earth - got about 10mA there. Then put it on Live meter tail - got about 400mA. I think only fridge and broadband running at the time.

I wondered whether there's anything significant about the ratio of leakage current on main earth to supply current - here about 2.5%. Did get a chance to start switch stuff on to see if leakage current increases - and experiment for another day!

My next planned use is on a TT system where the main switch (time-delayed) RCD trips every few weeks. Again, I've run RCD tests and IR on all internal circuits but not yet found anything amiss. I'm hoping my shiny new Di-Log will help.

I'll be interested to hear from anyone else on how they've used the meter to diagnose problems.

 

[Guitarist]

sparc, it's really good when you can show a customer exactly what's going wrong. I always feel that even if they don't fully understand what we are talking about, the fact that we are taking the time to show them actual readings leaves a customer knowing that they are in safe and competent hands.
When I got my unit, I EL tested everything in the house just for fun

 

[sparc]

Just finished on CU (x2) install in large rambling house and was getting some low IR readings (>0.5M <1.0M) on a couple of circuits.

With everything connected up and all circuits live I put my Di-Log on the main earth and got reading varying between 65mA and 113mA. There are several PCs and main electronics gadgets connected so some earth leakage current is to be expected, but was surprised at level.

When I turned everything off, main switch -all MCBs, and the couple of RCDs - I was still getting ~30-35mA on the main earth. This was a steady reading - not declining, like something was slowly discharging.

I'm baffled. Check D-log was zeroed, etc, but got consistent reading on main earth. BTW - all main bonding to gas and water is good.

Anyone any ideas please?

 

[Guitarist]

D-log will give odd readings when the battery gets low. Just a thought.

 

[MarkieSparkie]

Just finished on CU (x2) install in large rambling house and was getting some low IR readings (>0.5M <1.0M) on a couple of circuits.

With everything connected up and all circuits live I put my Di-Log on the main earth and got reading varying between 65mA and 113mA. There are several PCs and main electronics gadgets connected so some earth leakage current is to be expected, but was surprised at level.

When I turned everything off, main switch -all MCBs, and the couple of RCDs - I was still getting ~30-35mA on the main earth. This was a steady reading - not declining, like something was slowly discharging.

I'm baffled. Check D-log was zeroed, etc, but got consistent reading on main earth. BTW - all main bonding to gas and water is good.

Anyone any ideas please?

Probably leakage from a poorly earthed/bonded adjacent property seeking the low impedance parallel path to earth via the good quality earthing/bonding at your installation.

 

[sparc]

Thanks for the suggestion, Guitarist. I'm not 100% certain, but I think I can rule out low battery as I moved the meter around a bit, and got consistent readings. I'd be interested to hear what you found out - "When I got my unit, I EL tested everything in the house just for fun " - any surprises about what types of circuits/ appliances were producing leaks - and whether you think these were normal operations - like PC power filters - or as a result of faults.

I think MarkieSparkie may be on to something, though - as I'd taken measurements on each of the bonds. Looking at my numbers it could be that the two values on the water and gas bond - roughly - add up to what I was measuring on the main earth.

The house is close to the river - and the area can flood every few years - so the leakage from another property through wet ground makes sense ...

 

[Guitarist]

I didn't come across any surprises at first. Then I found that on the different scales the readings would be very different, even though the readings were stable. As the unit was new, I didn't even consider the battery and was ready to take it back to where I had bought it. I decided to try a new battery "just in case", and everything sorted itself out after that, across all scale selections. No odd readings tbh, just the usual few mA on the electronics.