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Lighting increasing and appliances blowing?

Andy Barton

Good Evening,


I have a client for whom we have just completed a full rewire within a small commercial unit with a single-phase supply. The coffeeshop/bar opened eight weeks ago and since then has had several issues, including the following;


1. Lighting is fed via a four-way MK dimmer module, increasing in brightness intermittently.
2. A laptop charger stopped working. Once investigated, it was reported to be due to a power surge,
3. An amplifier for the audio system is going into standby mode due to a potential surge.
4. The coffee grinder is cutting out halfway through use.


The distribution unit is a Schneider with all separate RCBO circuits. The faults are intermittent, and none of the breakers tripped from the above. The lighting circuit is fed with one feed and distributed via two dimmers, both affected by the increased brightness.
I checked all the usual culprits, like loose connections, and the EIC had nothing suspicious to report. Can anyone please help me with understanding what is going on here?

Kind Regards,

Andy

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  • 0

    Check the tightness of all neutral connections back at the DB including the neutral link. 

    Did you install surge protection?

    Put a clamp meter on all the bonds to extraneous conductive parts and see how much current is flowing in them, if you have more than an amp or 2 then you may have diverted neutral currents. Check the voltages between the 3 lines to earth and the 3 lines to neutral and neutral to earth,anything strange? If you have either of the listed anomalies time to call the DNO on 105.

    Oops . Just seen it was a single phase supply.So voltages neutral to earth and line to neutral.

    JP

  • 0 in reply to John Peckham

    But it will be 3 phase back in the street - my concern is that a similar problem could be happening on the supply side.  However the other thing to check is that some lights not on  dimmers are also affected.

    Mike.

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  • 0 in reply to John Peckham

    But it will be 3 phase back in the street - my concern is that a similar problem could be happening on the supply side.  However the other thing to check is that some lights not on  dimmers are also affected.

    Mike.

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