Request for help... no hook-up

[Les]

Have you checked your 13amp socket at home, is the earth ok? Have you checked the earth on your 13aamp convertor Cable?

 

[Robowagen]

Ha! Yeah I did, different sites too, there is clearly something coming though, as the circuit breaker wouldn't stay made even for a nano-second.

Ok as your not on a site you could swap the neutral & live cables in the 13 amp converter cable you use at home & then try it at home, if the circuit breaker trips as it does when on site your half way there!


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[Tom Downie]

Wouldn't the polarity do this? Does it not effect equipment plugged in if polarity was different?

Sorry for the questions, I recall a girl I was dating who insisted on wiring her own socket on a lamp which she got the polarity wrong on even tho I could clearly see she'd got it wrong she insisted that my assistance was not required. She plugged it in and it blew the bulb!

So my logic was that the built in leisure battery charger would pull enough load to trip the circuit if there was an issue but the OP said it works fine at home but not on the 3 sites they had visited, this would point towards polarity would it not?

After a quick google my money is on polarity issue, I believe the RCD will trip when it detects too much current on the wrong cable going into it. It would be the first thing I'd check for sure.

I am sorry but as a qualified electrician, if you got the polarity wrong on an AC circuit i.e. cross connected the live and the neutral you would not notice any difference other than the lamp would still be live if the fuse in the plug blew. However if you confused either the live or the neutral with the earth that is a different matter, you might blow the fuse or the casing of the lamp would be live giving you a shock if you touched it but I can see no scenario where the lamp would blow. Most likely under the circumstances that the lamp was the wrong voltage i.e. 115v. Incidentally in most domestic wiring nowadays the earth is connected to the neutral at the consumer unit (fuse box)

 

[Robowagen]

I am sorry but as a qualified electrician, if you got the polarity wrong on an AC circuit i.e. cross connected the live and the neutral you would not notice any difference other than the lamp would still be live if the fuse in the plug blew. However if you confused either the live or the neutral with the earth that is a different matter, you might blow the fuse or the casing of the lamp would be live giving you a shock if you touched it but I can see no scenario where the lamp would blow. Most likely under the circumstances that the lamp was the wrong voltage i.e. 115v. Incidentally in most domestic wiring nowadays the earth is connected to the neutral at the consumer unit (fuse box)

You are quite probably right as I'm not an electrician, all I can tell you is what happened & it happened as I wrote!

It did happen over 25 years ago not that this would change anything at all?


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[sidepod]

I am sorry but as a qualified electrician, if you got the polarity wrong on an AC circuit i.e. cross connected the live and the neutral you would not notice any difference other than the lamp would still be live if the fuse in the plug blew. However if you confused either the live or the neutral with the earth that is a different matter, you might blow the fuse or the casing of the lamp would be live giving you a shock if you touched it but I can see no scenario where the lamp would blow. Most likely under the circumstances that the lamp was the wrong voltage i.e. 115v. Incidentally in most domestic wiring nowadays the earth is connected to the neutral at the consumer unit (fuse box)

Easy Tom, we had the TNC-S/TT debate a while ago! Don't go there as campsites are/should be TT. (Section 7)