Unusual Zs reading when testing circuit with RCBO

[Strima]

■ it is unreasonable in all the circumstances for the conductor to be dead;

It needs to be live so I can test it as I'm doing live testing

■ it is reasonable in all the circumstances for the person to be at work on or near that conductor while it is live;

Those 6' test probes are really hard to control

■ suitable precautions (including, where necessary, the provision of personal protective equipment) have been taken to prevent injury.

I have received suitable training in the use of test equipment, my tester is GS38 compliant and I'm wearing suitable PPE such as hand and eye protection.

 

[Upton Sparks]

I'm not advocating not to do Live testing at all. I see the benefit in this, a proven measurement that the circuit will disconnect in the required time.

Now whether I agree with there the current guidance of how to test is neither here nor there.
I'm just specking of the health and safety world we living in, it's the employer responsibility to removed,reduce and then manage the risk's... That's the Law.

going back to the problem of, A difference in readings values from what is expected from measured, both readings would be a pass, only one is an unexpected value, and we can all see why its unexpected as we are all taught to do Zs=Ze+ R1+R2, so we are checking that our calibrated meter is working correctly, as it does its magic...

you can in this instance spend the next hour or so investigation if there is a loss earth or not. you can pull the whole circuit apart if your that way inclined, buzz out each leg measure it, and put it back together and add all your measure legs up, do your testing again and see where you are...... and maybe you had a lose connection or maybe your back to square one.

But in my Experience its the RCD tests which most of the time cause this slight difference.

there is nothing wrong in calculation your results and proving it or supporting it by a live test to prove earth continuity.
which would then be recorded on the Cert as comment.

 

[Ian1981]

Not sure there's even a disagreement here as either calculation or direct measurement by live testing is both allowed and an acceptable method advocated by scheme operators and by bs7671, GN3 and multiple guidance books.
Scheme operators like the calculation to eliminate the need for live testing but it's upto the individual testing.

 

[Octopus]

So I tried testing the same circuit on the outgoing side of the RCBO.... hardly any different to the Ze....

So tested another new completely new circuit today.

R1 + R2 = 0.10
Ze = 0.20
Zs = 1.01

Hum ..... a bit puzzling

So next step will be next week, when a mate is lending me his spare MFT to compare results.......

I'll keep you posted.

Thanks for the input so far.

 

[Octopus]

So I borrowed my mates tester, and on 1 quick test:

My Metrel tester Zs = 0.52 ( i used a plug and tried my 13A plug lead set, plus my kewtech plug in with the leads - the results were similar

Mates tester Zs = 0.38

So a variance between testers, not as much as had seen, but a difference all the same

I recall somebody a while ago mentioning a "spray" to use on tester connections - anyone know what it is?

 

[Andy78]

Electrical contact spray ?

 

[Andy78]

What brand was your mate's tester Murdoch ? And were the comparison tests low current "no-trip" tests ?

 

[Sparky Ninja]

I know a company that uses this..

Aerosol - ESC Electrical Contact Cleaner Spray - 500ml - [AT-1487] - http://www.thesafetysupplycompany.co.uk/p/8954323/aerosol---esc-electrical-contact-cleaner-spray----500ml---at-1487.html?gclid=CjwKEAjw4vzKBRCt9Zmg8f2blgESJADN5fDgvfGfr2lGv4q91BRXOKGuZVQs0qVr5sEUVOuKGhBU6RoCMKXw_wcB

on their supply leads in a factory.

I don't think you really need to worry too much about it though.

Fundamentally, it appears as if the protective devices are introducing significant impedances to question the effectiveness of your protective measure. If I was in that position (assuming I can personally verify the accuracy of my instrument) I would accept and record the readings measured. If these are too high I would try a replacement and would contact the manufacturer for their spiel, and maybe record it on the documentation.

Using calculation to compare your measured value, is for purposes exactly as you are demonstrating here.

For the argument of referring to calculation instead...

Opting to refer to calculation over measurement would be naive. In a real world scenario, a fault current is going to flow down your measured impedance, not your calculated impedance. Calculations, while useful, never compensate for connection resistances, contact resistance or arc gaps.

Yes, the H&S world, Training courses, Guidance Note 3 and the incoming 18th edition all suggest EFLI can be verified by calculation with the measured protective conductor continuity and supply impedance loop. But these fault currents don't flow down imaginary numbers.

Also, the disconnection of a protective conductor when verifying continuity will remove the parallels. When we measure Zs we want the parallels.We need to start paying more attention to the pefc and pscc (and therein the pfc) within our circuits and not just at the origin or submains. The 18th edition is planning on introducing terms like:

• rated short-time withstand current, Icw (already there)
• rated peak withstand current, Ipk
• rated conditional short-circuit current, Icc

These have been around for powertrack busbar systems but are now going to be more commonly used for any assembly. So we will need to set our testers to pfc (which means it will do an EFLI test and play with ohms law) and make sure all the parallels are there to ensure we measure the highest pfc value.