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V.O.E.L.C.B.

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It dawned on me fully today while working in an old holiday chalet circa 1940s.


The man in the next chalet was trying to use his old Black and Decker 1970s car boot sourced electric drill outside on the grass. He was making a wooden clothes hanger with wood and pegs. A jolly good job too.


I had had a quick look inside his chalet as he needs some new sockets. The  fuse box is an old cream coloured Wylex 6 way unit with fuse wire carriers. There is an old Crabtree V.O.E.L.C.B. installed before the fuse box.


As he worked in the garden drilling wood, it dawned on me that he had zero shock protection as he would if he had a R.C.C.B. installed.


It's strange how a picture speaks a thousand words.


Z.


  • 0
    mapj1:

    Equally the youngsters tease me for stuff I recall as being 'so last century'.


    I still think of the last century as being the 19th Century. ?


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    I’m old enough to remember that the new fangled drills with the plastic bodies would never last as the metal bodied drills we had.


    It’s not just about the electrical safety of the drill itself, if you drill through a live cable it’s far better to do so with a drill that has a plastic body.
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    If it much more than 50 years old that marks about half time in the development of the pistol trigger hand drill -
    history of electric drills, 1916 to date


    beware the adverts


    Time and the evolution of kit and manufacturing standards is a funny thing. Looking at that leaflet from 1940, 80 years ago, 1980 would be a mid point, and yet 1980 seems almost 'modern times' while as  I recall in 1980, stuff from  1940 felt like another much older era, but the interval is the same . Equally the youngsters tease me for stuff I recall as being 'so last century'.

    Mike.


  • 0
    Sparkingchip:
    Zoomup:

    The man in the next chalet was trying to use his old Black and Decker 1970s car boot sourced electric drill outside on the grass. He was making a wooden clothes hanger with wood and pegs. A jolly good job too.




    A forty year old Black and Decker drill with a metal case, a Class I hand held appliance unlike the modern all insulated drills with plastic cases, being used outdoors?


    That probably comes under the heading of foolhardy as well.




    Are you sure that it is Class I? I have a Wolf drill which was old when I bought it 40 years ago and it is Class II even though the gearbox forwards is metal.


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    Zoomup:


    The man in the next chalet was trying to use his old Black and Decker 1970s car boot sourced electric drill outside on the grass. He was making a wooden clothes hanger with wood and pegs. A jolly good job too.




     




    A forty year old Black and Decker drill with a metal case, a Class I hand held appliance unlike the modern all insulated drills with plastic cases, being used outdoors?


    That probably comes under the heading of foolhardy as well.


     


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    I think 500 mA is realistic as Normcall‍  says, assuming 30 mA would be very foolhardy.


    Time was a bit of an unknown, there isn’t any way to determine how long it took them to clunk off.


    Testing was just applying voltage  to the earthing system with a transformer to see what happened, with the anticipation of a clunk.
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    I think you will find they have an inherent tripping current of 500mA
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    The electricians who installed the VOELCBs seventy years ago put far more consideration into installing earth rods than today’s electricians do, as the earthing was far more critical back then.


    It is time to replace that old VOELCB with a far more reliable RCD that is less dependent on sound earthing, particularly out in the areas where homes are on sand and gravel, which includes where I live on the second alluvial plain of the River Severn.
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    ca609695175a58107ce6b72a6cec2ee2-original-447fcdf7-1eda-4de4-b5d3-19d93e5120ea.jpg
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    The basic requirements were the same to limit:
    • Voltage

    • Current 

    • Time


    Current cannot be limited, but the minimum threshold for the protective device can be set.


    The reality is that a RCD is more efficient and reliable than a VOELCB.


    But there are still millions of VOELCB still in people’s homes in the UK despite having been obsolete for over forty years.

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