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Supply failure warning device

Grumpy

Hi All,

The RCBO that supplies the compressor in my treatment plant tripped randomly the other day. As I have been doing some maintenance on it and subsequently monitoring it I noticed quite quickly. This was the first time it had tripped since installation 20 months ago and hasn't tripped again.

The RCBO is in a CU in the detached garage which itself is supplied via sub main direct off the incoming supply to the house.

So I thought some sort of monitoring device might be prudent. Originally I thought I could utilise a non maintained emergency light that I have kicking about but realised it wouldn't have enough life if the supply failed at night. I go into the garage daily but not necessarily first thing. Has anyone any (low cost) suggestions?

I'm thinking maybe batten lampholder, red lamp, supply from garage lighting circuit and, what, an NC relay with a supply from the outgoing terminals of the plant's RCBO?

We're not talking life critical, hospital standard here, but if the supply's off too long my poor little microbes suffer!

Thanks for any suggestions!

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  • 0

    Do you want something that raises an alarm back at the house ? I have used a garo no/NC contactor for this sort of thing - slightly wasteful in that the contactor is on all the time - well most of  the time, but easy in that it easily wires into the Wylex CU off the end of the bus-bar (cue booing and hissing from the purists who will claim the CU is now a death trap as it is not a Wylex contactor - but they do not make one with that contact configuration) and then a pair of wires can be brought out and the  contacts can be used for almost anything - in my case shorting two spare wires in the armoured CAT5  cable that accompanies the SWA down the garden and the rest of the alert is at my end.

    I have also in another life connected a small siren and  car battery to a modified  EM light fitting to warn of generator failure, but that was very much a case of what we had to hand at the time, which was pretty much that.

    Mike.

  • 0 in reply to mapj1

    Hi Mike, thanks for that. The garage is only 30m from the house and one of the windows is clearly visible from the kitchen so a simple red light in the garage window would suffice. I'm probably being a bick thick but wouldn't that Garo unit monitor the whole busbar whereas I only want to monitor the output of a specific rcbo.

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  • 0 in reply to mapj1

    Hi Mike, thanks for that. The garage is only 30m from the house and one of the windows is clearly visible from the kitchen so a simple red light in the garage window would suffice. I'm probably being a bick thick but wouldn't that Garo unit monitor the whole busbar whereas I only want to monitor the output of a specific rcbo.

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