EHU tripping
My van has never tripped the EHU bollard in ten years of ownership.
In fact it is always hooked up to the house supply via a 30Ma rcd with further protection from being provided by the house consumer unit RCD.
However on a recent trip to a site (not a Caravan Club site) it constantly tripped the bollard rcd sometimes straight away and sometimes after an hour or so.
Everything was turned off in the van and the bollard kept tripping, swapping to another socket didn't help either.
Upon returning home I connected to the house supply via the rcd of course, and nothing tripped,
I turned everything on nothing tripped.
It has been connected for 24 hrs now and all is ok.
I would value any opinion on the possible cause.
Comments
-
What was the amperage of the site EHU?
1 -
Did you have any utensil say kettle, phone charger, etc plugged in when on site that you are not using when at home hooked up.
I would try kettle at home first if it is a neutral earth fault is doesn't actually have to be switched on to trip just a real pain to trace that's all.
I had an rcd tripping randomly at home once and turned out to be a fault in my wife's iron on the steam side.
One other possibility is are you using the same hook up lead at home and on site.
0 -
Nothing at all was plugged in on site and all fuses were pulled out too, but still it tripped.
So that rules out drawing too much load from the EHU bollard.
I also borrow another cable whilst on site, it tripped with that too.
Its a real mystery as everything is ok when the van is plugged into the home supply.
0 -
I had the EHU trip out at a recent CL but was unable to trace the reason. Only did it the once and I came to the conclusion that it was possibly an intermittent earth fault. Don't you just hate these 'will o'the wisp' faults.
0 -
I would have asked someone else on site to plug into the same bollard using the same outlet, to see if it tripped with them too. It could possibly be a problem with the bollard and nothing at all to do with your caravan/cable/fuses. We had a similar problem once and the bollard had some kind of fault (it's a long time ago and I can't remember what it was).
1 -
I go with a problem in the bollard. Perhaps the "trip" had gone faulty. As written above, test bollard with another caravan - test your caravan with another bollard (or at home).
Once I encountered a bollard that tripped for nothing at all once a lead that went nowhere was plugged in. It was of the "plug and twist" type and something in the twist set it off. Just used a different socket.
0 -
We plugged into a faulty bollard on a late night arrival last year at Exeter. Only one left, nothing worked. Of course your first thoughts are it’s something in the van. We just went to bed, used 12 volt overnight, got up next morning, plugged into another now unused plug on same bollard.....voila! All up and running, no further issues. Warden took it out of use for fixing later.
0 -
Wonky electrics are a real nuisance, I sometimes wonder how promptly some bollards get fixed on busy sites with a lot of bookings. Our experience at Cayton Bay recently was not good and we had a similar event at Clumber where our cable (brand new) was blamed till we discovered the adjoining pitch had been told the same. So, it's not always your fault but make sure you know how the gas system works on a dark cold night!
0
