Power socket tripping mains - Mutiple wires in screw terminals

[yktan]

Hi all,

First of all, I'm not an electrician so pardon me if the terms that I am using are not correct.

Recently, the main circuit breaker tripped and after I isolated the particular branch that is causing the trip, I found that one that one of the power socket (used by the washing machine, if it matters) is causing the trip even when there is nothing plugged into it. After I unscrewed the power socket, I found that for each of the screw terminals inside, there are more than 1 wire screwed in (3 Earth, 3 Neutral and 2 Live). I thought it is to connect to other power sockets/fittings, but after I took out the wires, nothing else seems to be affected by it.

The first thing I did was to replace it with a new power socket and it stopped tripping. After a few days, it tripped the mains again.

After more in-depth troubleshooting, I found that whenever the two Live wires touch each other (even without screwing into the socket screw terminal), it causes a short. My two questions to the respected electricians on this forum are:
(1) Whether it is possible to find which of the two Live wire is faulty? I tried screwing in one of the Live wire and resetting the circuit breaker but it causes a very bad trip on the mains (I can't reset it for a while after that) and I was afraid it will blow the big fuses.
(2) Whether it is ok to screw in back only one of the Live wire assuming I can find which one is faulty? Will it cause an overload on that wire?

Attached is a picture of the power socket, currently I unscrewed the two Live wires out of the socket.

Thanks in advance for your help!

 

[malcolmsanford]

Not being over educated in Malaysian wiring practices, are you sure those Whites are lines (Live) cables?

Often White cable denotes the neutral cables and the blacks would be lines. So that is the first thing you need to do make sure what you think is actually what you have.

To be honest I wish I could give you the answer to this over a forum but really all I can do is advise.

Logically you would think 3 green 3 black ergo 3 white, but you have only 2 so where is the 3rd. I'm thinking, which is why I asked you to make sure that the whites are lives, that what you have there is that the blacks are the lives and you have a circuit made from black/green.

You really need to start to split things down, isolate things and start to trace things out. Again not having much experience in Malaysia, and can only draw on the Middle East, but local electricians are pretty reasonably priced, and in all honesty trying to apply Western Logic into this maybe more hassle than it is worth.

I personally would get a local lad in and get them to sort this out.

 

[sedgy34]

Have a look in another socket make sure the wires go in same terminals