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New wylex mini RCBO
Former Community Member
I can’t help but notice how small these are, but where has the earth tag gone? How do these devices detect earth?
I’ve notice a tiny metallic strip on the back and front of the breaker but the one on the back doesn’t make any contact with the board as the din rail in wylex boards actually have a groove.
The idea of a no-contact pod is interesting, given that it must connect to L and N to get power, and after the usual 'shunt trip' methods of push rods and so on, surely the next easiest way to fire the MCB is to create an overload - just draw a short duration L-N burst via a connection of an few ohms.
I must admit, I'd be a bit surprised, my first expectation would be a push rod, but I can see a non-mechanical method has attractions.
Unless the MCBs have been designed with the magnetic core to the MCB actuator in some way exposed, it would be very hard (i.e. you would need far need more amp turns) to generate magnetic flux from a distance, than you could generate by just drawing large current through the internal coil that was already optimally wound around the actuator core in the MCB, to sense the live current.
Clearly if you do this and the MCB does not trip then something melts, but a fusible link in the RCD pod would not be beyond the bounds of possibility for such occasions, as the MCB assembly would then need replacing anyway.
Magnetic pulse generation, despite Star Trek and others, is something that gets rapidly harder with distance, and to get field into a closed coil from the outside is as hard as detecting the field leakage from inside out - if only a few % of the flux strength gets out, then the coupling factor for getting your impulse in is similarly poor ...
Mind you, if MCB firing is by pulling a large current then a voltage twitch that operates the neighbours is quite likely, no close proximity magnetic coupling needed
The idea of a no-contact pod is interesting, given that it must connect to L and N to get power, and after the usual 'shunt trip' methods of push rods and so on, surely the next easiest way to fire the MCB is to create an overload - just draw a short duration L-N burst via a connection of an few ohms.
I must admit, I'd be a bit surprised, my first expectation would be a push rod, but I can see a non-mechanical method has attractions.
Unless the MCBs have been designed with the magnetic core to the MCB actuator in some way exposed, it would be very hard (i.e. you would need far need more amp turns) to generate magnetic flux from a distance, than you could generate by just drawing large current through the internal coil that was already optimally wound around the actuator core in the MCB, to sense the live current.
Clearly if you do this and the MCB does not trip then something melts, but a fusible link in the RCD pod would not be beyond the bounds of possibility for such occasions, as the MCB assembly would then need replacing anyway.
Magnetic pulse generation, despite Star Trek and others, is something that gets rapidly harder with distance, and to get field into a closed coil from the outside is as hard as detecting the field leakage from inside out - if only a few % of the flux strength gets out, then the coupling factor for getting your impulse in is similarly poor ...
Mind you, if MCB firing is by pulling a large current then a voltage twitch that operates the neighbours is quite likely, no close proximity magnetic coupling needed
