Electric tripping more frequently

[john]

My electric is tripping more frequently - in the past it might trip when we has water heater
, kettle and toaster on together, but recently it's tripping with just one of these on. Nothing has changed with my setup and I'm at a loss to explain why this is happening. Any ideas?

 

[ostell]

One (or more) of them has a leakage to ground perhaps ?

 

[rob2]

Really need more information to make a guess... Is this the shore power tripping on the pontoon or at the distribution board on board? Is it power from an inverter fed by your batteries?

If it's the shore power tripping out, then maybe your neighbours have all left battery chargers/dehumidifiers/heaters on and the circuit is already near its full capacity. If it's tripping out on board, then it may be that you have some bad contacts which are increasing the load. If it's power from an inverter, it could be that the low battery voltage protection is tripping out.

Just a few ideas to be going on with...

Rob.

 

[RAI]

I had an immersion heater element develop an intermittant short circuit that produced that effect. I didn't locate it until it became a persistent short circuit.

 

[jordanbasset]

I had an immersion heater element develop an intermittant short circuit that produced that effect. I didn't locate it until it became a persistent short circuit.

I had a similar issue, heater element gave it up completely in the end, changed it and all ok now

 

[nigelmercier]

Not enough infomation: the MCB or RCD/ELCB?

 

[Stu Jackson]

Connections, check them all. Could also be an old, bad breaker that needs to be replaced. Calculate your loads before you turn on all of your AC appliances at once, to check wire sizing, too.

 

[john]

More info

I have my own supply to the boat, complete with SWEB meter! Trips out at the meter circuit breaker and i gave to reset that and the boat breaker too. Thanks John

 

[Solent sailer]

if the RCD or RCBO is tripping dont forget that many items are single pole switched and the earth leakage device will trip on a nuteral fault even if the live is switched off. the normaly occure when there is a load on the other circuits so if you have a worsening earth fault on say the water heater it may well trip the RCD when the heater is "switched off" and a kettle or fan heater is switched of introducing a significant load.
(as said before more info would be useful)

 

[nigelmercier]

I have my own supply to the boat, complete with SWEB meter! Trips out at the meter circuit breaker and i gave to reset that and the boat breaker too. Thanks John

I have known MCBs to get tired, what rating is it?

 

[john]

I have known MCBs to get tired, what rating is it?

I've just left the boat for the week, so I'll have a look next weekend. Thanks for all the suggestions so far.

 

[Simondjuk]

Elements can develop high resistance shorts which only cause a trip when sufficient load is applied to any of the circuits protected by the RCD.

In houses, this often manifests itself in the main RCD tripping when the kettle and an electric shower, or other high draw appliances, are used simultaneously. The cause is often a failing element in an electric cooker.

Just an example of how a fault in one circuit can cause trips when any circuit is loaded.

 

[prv]

Worth identifying whether it's an RCD or MCB that's tripping, as the causes are completely different. One detects small currents in the wrong place (leaking to earth), the other excessively large currents in the right place.

If the unit that trips has a test button on it it's probably an RCD, although this got blurred once they introduced RCBOs that combine both functions; I don't know if it's possible with those (I don't have any) to identify which function caused the trip.

Pete

 

[sailinglegend420]

Measure the voltage between the Neutral and the Earth under different loads. If it's greater than 5 volts then disconnect the shorepower and measure the difference incoming from the pontoon. That's where the fault might be.