RCD earthing advice please

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2newbies
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RCD earthing advice please

Post by 2newbies » Fri Mar 30, 2018 6:53 pm

Hi All,
Just in the process of fitting a 240 volt twin electric socket with a built in RCD. Looking for some advice on what would be a good place to earth it. We've got the screws that stick up on the rear wheel arches where the rear gull wing seats used to be and we've also got the anchors where the rear seat belts used to be. Would either of these be a good place to earth an RCD unit?
Thanks in advance
Paul
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Re: RCD earthing advice please

Post by g8dhe » Fri Mar 30, 2018 9:19 pm

The seat stud's should be fine or the seatbelt fixings.
Geoff
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Re: RCD earthing advice please

Post by 2newbies » Thu Apr 05, 2018 8:54 pm

Thanks for that Geoff, we've seen a combined plug unit with a built in RCD but it doesn't have an MCD. Will the fuses in the plug be enough to protect the circuit or is it best to put in a small consumer unit?

Thanks again

Paul
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Re: RCD earthing advice please

Post by g8dhe » Thu Apr 05, 2018 9:40 pm

Mumm, the normal thing people look at are the RCD Camping strips, which are intended for use in tents or at least without being surrounded by an unearthed metal shell! These aren't normally suitable for use in a Van as they don't normally allow bringing out an Earth wire to permanently attach to the van metal work, there might be a few that do allow this but its rarely made an obvious feature! They are not a good choice in a van as any fault that causes the van's shell to become live won't cause the RCD to trip, until someone steps into or out of the vehicle or when someone leans against the van and then completes the circuit to Earth thru hands - body - feet and shoes ...... they then get a belt, which may or may not cause the RCD to trip depending where the fault is. It also involves bringing in the cable thru an opening which is also a hazard area ......
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Re: RCD earthing advice please

Post by 2newbies » Thu Apr 05, 2018 10:31 pm

Thanks again Geoff,

Yes, that's what we inherited with our van which we now realise is unsafe and is what we are looking to replace. We've been tempted to fit a twin plug with a build in RCD made by powerbreaker. This does have an additional earthing point so it can be earthed to the chassis of the van. We are tempted to use this because it's small and compact compared to the campervan consumer unit. In addition we've always used an RCD that's attached to the hook up cable that goes into the electric hook up on the campsite.

what we really need to know is whether you think this twin plug with the additional earth and a built in RCD would suffice or do you think we'd be better off using a larger camper van consumer unit.

Thanks again.

p.s. it's thanks to your posts that we became aware of how unsafe our set up was!

Paul
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Re: RCD earthing advice please

Post by g8dhe » Thu Apr 05, 2018 10:45 pm

It won't meet the IEE specifications unless you do the job properly unfortunately, and there have in the past been some campsites that either check that you are using a proper cable and connectors or if they spot trailing cables going into vans get very upset .....

These are the basic rules to follow https://www.caravanclub.co.uk/media/102 ... ons-mo.pdf
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Re: RCD earthing advice please

Post by 2newbies » Fri Apr 06, 2018 10:39 pm

Hi All,

Thanks for all the advice. i will go out tomorrow and buy a good quality consumer unit and make sure I earth it correctly.

My next decision will be where to run the cable into the van! Was toying with the idea of sticking it under the bonnet - with the units in the van it's a bit hard to cut a hole in the side at the moment... sure I'll think of something!

Thanks again.

Paul
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