So true

What's Bizarre is that I can hear you as I read your comment! It doesn't happen when I read other posts.

@@jimmjl Now you've said that, I can hear Clive too 8-)

You should take apart an American arc fault breaker (AFCI). I've seen an arc drawn between hot and neutral and the breaker doing absolutely nothing. The manufacturers don't provide any good information on how they actually work, and some states here have even removed them from the code because they are insanely expensive and it isn't clear that they actually do anything.

Yes agree it's been a closed shop money making racket for years.

Yes, exactly my thoughts.

You should see the American code. AFCIs (AFDDs) required on almost all circuits. Not clear that they do anything because I have seen arcing with the breaker not tripping. Some states have removed them from their codes. Another ridiculous one was the code requiring GFCI (RCD) on permanently installed outdoor air conditioning condenser units. When most of them don't even work on a GFCI breaker and will instantly cause it to trip. Not to mention that breakers big enough don't even exist in a lot of cases and when they do, they are $200+. This was done because someone was shocked by a disconnected wire that touched the metal casing of the AC condenser, one that was installed with no grounding conductor. Strangely enough they did not require a grounding conductor, which would have solved the problem, but instead they required a ridiculous 60+ amp 2 pole GFCI.

They also get paid a lot of money to create such confusion.

Stop thinking logically.. Dont you know by now society deliberately creates difficulty and confusion in our modern day ... thats how corperates make money hand over fist.. We no longer use technology to make life easy like we use to.... Once mankind found computer technology could be eased to control us while under the guise of giving us a better life... the shareholder got a boner and became in charge.😮

i dont see anything wrong with using an ac rcd for a consumer unit in a garden shed for example, or a 1 bedroom flat with very little appliances and nothing fancy in the way of lighting, different horses for different courses?

@@croikeyaustralianbetamales3432 With so many things using transformers in one shape or another, one can not rely on the AC keeping the sinus shape needed for such an RCD to work reliably, as while YOUR load might be perfectly fine, your neighbour might have a leakage out on the mains feeding your place.

I'm in America so I don't have to follow the British regulations, but I do use DIN rail RCDs and RCBOs in control panels I build. Type AC is perfectly fine for something like a hardwired compressor with a mechanical pressure switch controlling the motor. Or any other large motor powered tools with no electronics, resistive heating elements with mechanical temperature switches, etc. I choose the type of RCD based on the load it serves. If it's receptacles or light sockets that anything can be plugged into, I will use a type A or B. Hardwired motor or heater with mechanical controls? Type AC. Motor with VFD? Type F. Welder or something else with a rectifier? Type B. But then again almost everything that is wired up to one of my panels is hardwired and large enough that it wouldn't be very likely for it to be replaced rather than repaired. In a typical situation you wouldn't want to do it that way usually. So for my situation I often find myself buying the type AC RCDs from the UK. So it's possible that they are being shipped internationally, they are extremely inexpensive compared to what we have available here, all of which are the equivalent of type AC.

@@theodorgiosan2570 I am in the U.S. as well. What "type" are our typical household receptacle GFCIs? Our "type A" seems to mean something different from Europe's "type A." Type A over here simply means it trips at 6mA - it says nothing about the waveform.

Yes the great silver grey "Art of Electronics" visible, as it is with so many electrical and electronic experts worth listening to. Some of the older books look interesting too but I cannot make out what they are. Looks like an interesting collection.

You're talking about education, aren't you? It was previously known as 'common sense', but people took more personal responsibility in those days. Fewer parasitic lawyers were ready to launch themselves at you to support your idiot (or malicious) actions in order to try to screw money out of a company.

Good shout! There’s very little advice about this. I’ve just been cobbling something quick together to get some power from a little (700W continuous) inverter generator into the house in case we get power cuts this winter. What I ended up with was a 16A Mennekes inlet (effectively a wall mounted ‘plug’) on my outside wall coming through into a three gang 13A fused MK socket, monitored on the way by a Peacefair PZEM-022 power monitor in a little IP66 enclosure (so I can see what I’m drawing from the generator, incl. power factor etc.). I worked out that I needed to cross-bond the earth of this setup to the indoor earth in case of mains or neutral to earth faults in equipment indoors causing dangerous potentials between them, or in case that a PME or open PEN fault on the main did the same, also creating dangerous potentials indoors. The one thing I can’t really account for is that if I return the mains earth all the way to the small generator, then I can’t protect against a PME fault causing a shock risk at that point. Within my generator itself, neutral doesn’t seem to have continuity with the generator earth. Should I just let the generator float connecting it with two core flex? Who knows? In the interim, I’ve placarded the indoor socket with advice to connect the trailing lead from the generator to the house inlet last, then disconnect that end first before approaching the generator minimising the risk of a PME fault shock to local earth.

I have never seen a type B RCBO are you sure there are loads? The B normally refers to the mcb part not the rcd part so when it says B6 or B32 it is the mcb that is type B not the rcd

There's no RCBO available with a type B RCD functionality. They're usually type A, and that's sufficient for the use in a regular domestic dwelling circuit. Here in Germany the type AC RCDs were already banned in 1987. Standard type of RCD protection is the type A since then. Don't confuse it with the B tripping curve of the MCB part of the RCBO. The selection of the proper RCD must be made according to the possible dangers that can occur on that circuit and that is depending on the appliances that are connected to it. The chance of having a dangerous smooth DC voltage on a regular socket outlet circuit is almost zero. Where it makes sense is when you install an EV charger without DC protection. The ones with DC protection just want a type A RCD, the protection against a DC fault is included into the charger itself. That is actually sufficient. The smooth DC most household appliances have is in a safe range. On EVs it's a completely different thing. For example the battery of a Renault Zoe has 400V DC and can supply a lot of power, so that is dangerous and requires this additional DC protection.

​@@philipdarton1002 Go to edwardes and search for Type B RCBO. There are loads. I can't post the link as it gets blocked by YT.

@@cdturri I looked. All Edwardes RCBOs are type A. Many are labelled Type B, but that relates to the operating curve of the MCB side. Pricing is mostly effected by whether they are single or double pole switching. The cheaper ones tend to be solid neutrals.

@@Marcel_Germann What type of fuses were used in Germany before the D II bottle fuses being commercially widespread in the 1910s?

Look at chargers with everything built in. They cost a bit more though. Something like a Zappi does not need earth rod, nor external expensive RCD, as the safety is built in. I expect others are available cheaper with the safety but without the fancy functionality built in.

The b6 or b32 etc is not a type b mcb. It will be type ac or a

Phase converter is mostly assembled. It will be in a video at some point.

An AFDD doesn’t work properly on a ring. It won’t detect a series arc because current can flow around the other side of the ring and ‘blind’ the AFDD. I think everything will go to radials and, in time, every circuit will have a single pole MCB/RCD/AFDD combined of the correct amperage.

@@alexwade9921 A ring reduces the arc as it is fed from both ends. So an in-built safety aspect of a ring. It will detect a large arc on a spur off the ring. The ring is here to stay in the UK. it is too good. Right now AFDDs are expensive, suggesting multiple radials with AFDDs is not economically going to work for many when other cheaper solutions are here. If fitting out a new electrical system with sockets circuits then reducing the sockets to one circuit, with heavy appliances on radials on RCBOs, will reduce costs. You can have a number of radials off one AFDD. Each radial can have its own fuse. The fuse carrier can be on a DIN rail in the CU, all labelled up. So one AFDD with a number of socket circuits off it. One could even be a ring. Cheap to do and well within regs.

Is it really a safety aspect though? If there’s a break in the ring due to a loose connection you then also have an inappropriately sized fuse/mcb/whatever and you won’t know it. I bet there are thousands of ring circuits that have been broken into radials by incompetent modification. A radial is so much more difficult to mess up. The only real benefit of a ring is that you get more current carrying ability for little more expense in cable or vise/versa. Modern appliances of every kind are more efficient than they ever were. Unless you’re using a fair few plug in heaters around the house then the 32A rings in most houses could quite happily be 20A or even 16A radials.

@@alexwade9921 If a ring is in 4mm cable with a 32A MCB/RCBO, then no problems if it is broken - which is a very rare thing. Many clearly do not understand what a final ring is to do. The ultimate is to have a radial to _each socket outlet_ on its own fuse at the main panel - the optimum solution of course. This means you will need a _very large_ expensive main panel and lots of fuses (one for each socket) in the main panel. 🎊🎈 *BINGO* 🎊🎈 *A ring gives this by distributing the main panel around the house via a ring cable,* distributing the fuses from the main panel around the building to each socket. *The ring is a busbar.* This saves the vast expense of a plethora of radial cables back to the main panel and also a plethora of expensive fuses/MCB's/RCBO/AFDDs at a _very large_ expensive main panel and expensive labour to install. *a)* A ring uses less cable and gives a longer route *b)* No limit to sockets on the ring, but total is limited to typically 32A. *c)* A ring uses less copper for a given load/area. *d)* Rings rarely have voltage drop as it is fed from both ends. *e)* Rings have lower impedance, less volt drop is less waste! They are more efficient. *f)* No single point of failure for the protective earth. *g)* If you are covering all rooms in one floor then a ring can do it. *1.* Ring final 2.5mm cable, 32A B-curve MCB, length *106m* on TN-C-S. *2.* Ring final 4mm cable, 32A B-curve MCB, length *171m.* *3.* Radial final 2.5mm cable, 25A B-curve MCB, length *33m.* *4.* Radial final circuit, 4mm cable, 32A B-curve MCB, length *43m.* Simple and highly effective.

@@johnburns4017 - A 4mm ring would end up being really expensive though! The cable is stiffer and harder to route as well. I bet there aren’t many around. That’s the real reason for a ring circuit. Economy at initial installation. Cooking and heating/aircon loads apart (and they are mostly dealt with separately) I reckon most houses are never using much more than 5A on everything else put together nowadays. 4mm everywhere is such a lot of copper!

No. Most domestic consumer units have only recently moved away from Type AC, anything else is total fiction for the majority at this point. Even obtaining F and B RCDs for commercial distribution boards is far from straightforward, they do exist but choices are extremely limited.

@@jwflame and very expensive with an EV install really type B or B+ should be really the standard. Time delayed - I see Eaton offer type G and type S. Programmable frequency RCDs/GFCIs are theoretically constructable but once you get into much higher frequencies beyond 2khz and or aperiodic frequencies it can get very complicated to fine tune the software encoded on these devices. And yes it’s pretty much software rather than hardware on its own - to recognize and filter the various frequency types. The other route some manufacturers here in the USA go through is to modify the output signal and apply chokes and filters to remove multi-frequency and higher frequency noise say from VFDs allowing a cleaner signal for the standard type A GFCI protection to work that is quite the rage here in the USA with VFDs on air conditioning units. After this a discussion of selective coordination is really needed not just for GFCI or AFCI protection but also for overcurrent protection including mixed use of breakers and fuses….

@@jwflame In Sweden it's not a problem finding them, though were type A typically is in the span of 250-700 SEK, type B is considerably more expensive, with the a span between 3000 - 6500 SEK, not counting the no-names and uncertain Chinese brands like Chiant and Rogy.. Type F is rarer, but readily available in the range of 700-1200 SEK. It seems like the shift is under way at least.

Partially - for the higher frequencies from things like inverter drives, some of that will end up on the supply. For others it's the current waveform that the device uses from the supply, many items with switching power supplies take current in pulses, and not always equally on the positive and negative cycles of the AC waveform.

The frustration I find is customers that have recently installed consumer units with type AC RCDs, I come in to quote some work and tell them they need to be changed. They almost don’t believe you as it’s been newly installed. 🤦‍♂️ the problem is type AC are still widely available at cheap prices like screwsfix etc .

Very informative and great videos as always. Thanks for your time and effort.

@@l3w1s91 why do they need to be changed on existing installs?

@Michael Chapman Yes in the three DIN rail row of _Legrand Lodgement T4_ main panels (which we stupidly call a consumer unit these days), they have an RCD for each row of DP MCBs. In Germany, France and Switz, all disconnectors at the main panels have to be DP, unlike the cheapo backward British, then they can have L and N bus bars making matters much easier - and do. At Leroy Merlin you will see for sale _Legrand Lodgement T4_ three row main panels - search on them - with an RDC on each row. Max eight MCBs off an RCD. They have on each row: *1.* 63A RCD type *AC.* *2.* 40A RCD type *AC.* *3.* 40A RCD type *A.* The type *A* has the washing machine and hob off it. The type AC according to John is obsolete in the UK. The type AC and type A both have the A/C and pulsed DC symbol on them. French consumer units. Leave us standing. They also use cable in flexible conduit and no cheapo twin & earth cable. Easy to thread in and out of the conduit. Their regs have been updated greatly in the past 20 years. The French units can be bought unpopulated, just with din rails and din rail connectors with cable. Then use British RCBOs and busbars. They are plastic but they do sell metal outer enclosures. The British come in the bottom on MCB's, etc, while the French is from the top with two bus bars, one L and one N. Nicer. Note the vertical busbar on the left hand side of the T4 linking the DIN rail rows. Search UKposts on: _Can UK Electricians Learn from French Electrics?_ Also search UKposts on: _Tableaux électriques Legrand Drivia prêt à poser : comment installer nos tableaux précâblés ?_ This shows a legrand main panel being installed.

Those are MCBs, covered here: ukposts.info/have/v-deo/ppmLZGd7qZVppHk.html MCBs work on overloads and short circuits RCDs detect leakage to Earth.

Yes if the EVSE has a Type B or equivalent in it. Most do. If not then a Type B RCD is required.

They have gone further, Type AC RCDs not permitted to be sold or installed in Australia from April 2023. Some parts of Australia banned them years ago.

depends on their governments.

Many RCBO are interchangeable from manufacturer to manufacturer. Find out which. They say do not mix, well they would say that wouldn't they.

You could if you can find one - most consumer unit manufacturers do not make them.

@@jwflame Thank you John, top man.

No, because those heaters contain electronics which is not suitable for Type AC.

Appreciate your confirmation, I’ll be getting them swapped out. Thanks