Keg Fridge Tripping Safety Switch

[lefty2446]

Only on new installations. Plenty of houses still, legally, have ceramic & wire fuses.

*Not a sparkie - Fridgie with restricted ticket*

Wouldn't adding a circuit be classed as new installation? IE rewirable ceramic fuses can stay on existing wiring but have to add RCD protection to the newly installed circuit?
Not nitpicking but curious to know.

Adrian

 

[Nath151]

*Not a sparkie - Fridgie with restricted ticket*

Wouldn't adding a circuit be classed as new installation? IE rewirable ceramic fuses can stay on existing wiring but have to add RCD protection to the newly installed circuit?
Not nitpicking but curious to know.

Adrian

yea if you add a circuit, add a outlet to a circuit or remove an outlet from a circuit you need to protect the circuit by rcd

 

[RetsamHsam]

Thanks for all the replies guys.. It looks as though the problem wasn't with the fridge after all, but the outlet it was plugged into. When i unplugged the fridge this arvo a chunk of the face plate came with it. I then plugged it into the outlet next to the dodgy one and two hours have passed without the rcd tripping. The only other viable explanation that has been given was that the defrost cycle is tripping the rcd, i guess i'll find out in afew weeks time. Thanks again.

 

[LethalCorpse]

*Not a sparkie - Fridgie with restricted ticket*

Wouldn't adding a circuit be classed as new installation? IE rewirable ceramic fuses can stay on existing wiring but have to add RCD protection to the newly installed circuit?
Not nitpicking but curious to know.

Adrian

yup, that's right.

Retsam, good to hear it's working again. If it's the outlet that's buggered and causing the trip, you need to get a sparky out to replace that outlet. It won't be particularly expensive.

 

[uniiqueuser]

What is older, the fridge or the RCD? We had an RCD which was fitted when they first came out 15 or 20 years ago and it was all the rage to get some dodgy sparky to install one, who probably knocked on the door or had some extremely late night TV ad. This happened before we bought the house and if had been the owner at that time I would have found a trusted sparky to replace the whole old and crappy fuse board instead of making a swift buck.

Every May or early June the RCD would trip for no apparent reason. I would trudge outside, often in my jocks, and switch it back on and it would continue to work for another few days or a week, and then switch off for no apparent reason. This is when we had an RCD free circuit for the fridges.

On inspection the RCD had a cracked casing and I suspect it was faulty. I have since upgraded the wiring with all new circuit breakers and a new RCD, and now the fridges are on RCD pretected circuits, including a 60 year old round top Kelvinator (shed beer fridge). The new RCD has not tripped since installation.

IMO these things are great if you are a great fan of sticking knives in toasters or warming up cold bath water with a fan heater. A bit like those yellow jackets which are made a space age kevlar type material that speeding forklifts bounce off when you walk out in front of them. Did someone say natural selection? :icon_cheers:

....BUT get the fridge tested anyway!

 

[stillscottish]

BUMP.

Woke up this morning to no power at the back of the house. Tracked it down to my beer fridge tripping the safety switch.

When we had our building work done, the electrician put in safety switches for the new part and also on the old circuits. That work was done 3 months ago and it's been working ok up till now.

I just remembered that this was my daughters old fridge (not that old) but it was tripping the safety swith OCCASIONALLY at her house so we did a fridge swap 2 years ago as I had old-style breakers at that time. I'm at work atm and hopefully can borrow a megger to test it tonight but any suggestions before then?

It's not tripping it straight away, only after about 10 secs (when the compressor kicks in?) and there's not much else on that circuit.

Cheers

Campbell

 

[Screwtop]

BUMP.

Woke up this morning to no power at the back of the house. Tracked it down to my beer fridge tripping the safety switch.

When we had our building work done, the electrician put in safety switches for the new part and also on the old circuits. That work was done 3 months ago and it's been working ok up till now.

I just remembered that this was my daughters old fridge (not that old) but it was tripping the safety swith OCCASIONALLY at her house so we did a fridge swap 2 years ago as I had old-style breakers at that time. I'm at work atm and hopefully can borrow a megger to test it tonight but any suggestions before then?

It's not tripping it straight away, only after about 10 secs (when the compressor kicks in?) and there's not much else on that circuit.

Cheers

Campbell

Hmm, Campbell maybe starter winding is SC or if it has a freezer, maybe the defrost element is SC can get them online for around the $30 - $40

Screwy

 

[stillscottish]

Didn't have much time to do any checking at 4am other than isolating it. Don't know if it's a recurrence of its earlier tripping or if it's gone to fridge heaven. I guess the insulation tester will tell the tale.

 

[winkle]

Didn't have much time to do any checking at 4am other than isolating it. Don't know if it's a recurrence of its earlier tripping or if it's gone to fridge heaven. I guess the insulation tester will tell the tale.

There's probably a wedding ring in there creating a short
(Private joke)

 

[stillscottish]

Hmmm!
Didn't look under that one.

 

[jonocarroll]

I had this problem recently (power stayed on for a little while, then knocked out) which I also traced to the keg fridge - happened when the fridge was on, didn't when I unplugged the fridge.

First, I tested to make sure it wasn't the temp controller (used without the fridge, used with the fridge, used with other device) and confirmed that it was indeed the fridge. I thought it was borked! I had a sparkie mate come around with a high-voltage multimeter and probe around, sure enough the power cord leaked current like a suitable analogy. The leakage wasn't across the motor, so we traced the wires through the fridge and eventually found the leakage in the metal housing for the light, on the same circuit as the thermostat! Since I've got a temp controller, I didn't really need the thermostat, and I don't really need the light inside the fridge, so we patched out that circuit, and now I have my fridge back.

This was probably back in April or May. Before, I could run the fridge for maybe 10 minutes before it tripped the switch. It's been running ever since, so no problems I guess.

The sparkie said that he hates Clipsal switches - apparently they're too sensitive for most houses, and that people have too many devices which each leak a little current, but in total it's enough for the switch. I've got my fridge running and the switch in place, so I'm happy as can be.

Hope that helps.

 

[stillscottish]

Well I got home and plugged it into a non-safety-switched outlet. Ran ok.
Meggered it and it read 250 Mohm. Plugged it back in to the original outlet and of course it worked and has been working ever since

 

[NDH]

I also had a faulty ferment fridge.

At my old house it was on an old rewirable fuse and in the new house it was on an RCD in the switchboard and an orange RCD 4-way box. It was fine for a few months then started tripping both RCD's when the compressor kicked in. Got rid of it and halved the power bill for last quarter. Point being changing the RCD or the circuit the fridge is on is a band-aid sollution, if the fridge is knackered its probably worth fixing or replacing, could be costing you money as well as being a head ache.

NDH

 

[Phoney]

Bump

I came home to no power in all of the power points today, I flicked the RCD switch and it turned off again... after exactly 6 minutes. Now, 6 minutes, that rings a bell....Oh! That's the compressor delay on my kegerators STC1000.

So I unplugged it, flicked the switch again, this time I plugged the freezer directly into the power point and it went off again after the compressor ran for about 1 second. This chest freezer is only 18 months old (came with 12 months warranty :angry: ).

So I pulled the cover off and inspected the compressor, no dust, no condensation, everything looks good, but I did find a family of about 10 little cockroachy looking bugs living underneath the compressor! The little bastards must have been hiding under there to keep warm. I sprayed them dead and gave everything a good wipe down, I suppose now i'll wait until tomorrow when everything dries and give it another shot.

Is it possible that one of them may have crawled inside somewhere (like the little black box to the left of the compressor) and created a short? Anything else I should try? Is it worth fixing? I really dont want to have to fork out for a new freezer and have to build a whole new collar.

 

[Phoney]

If anyone cares - I've plugged it in today and it's running like a charm.


It was the bloody cockroaches!

 

[pk.sax]

Them neukiller holicost survivors! Basterds.

 

[mattieharding]

Bump

I came home to no power in all of the power points today, I flicked the RCD switch and it turned off again... after exactly 6 minutes. Now, 6 minutes, that rings a bell....Oh! That's the compressor delay on my kegerators STC1000.

So I unplugged it, flicked the switch again, this time I plugged the freezer directly into the power point and it went off again after the compressor ran for about 1 second. This chest freezer is only 18 months old (came with 12 months warranty :angry: ).

So I pulled the cover off and inspected the compressor, no dust, no condensation, everything looks good, but I did find a family of about 10 little cockroachy looking bugs living underneath the compressor! The little bastards must have been hiding under there to keep warm. I sprayed them dead and gave everything a good wipe down, I suppose now i'll wait until tomorrow when everything dries and give it another shot.

Is it possible that one of them may have crawled inside somewhere (like the little black box to the left of the compressor) and created a short? Anything else I should try? Is it worth fixing? I really dont want to have to fork out for a new freezer and have to build a whole new collar.

View attachment 56294

We come across this pretty often, and yeah its possible that there may be some inside the little terminal box. Worth checking anyway

 

[Phoney]

Ahh yeah since that post I opened up the little terminal box and cleaned it out. From what I can tell the compressor is well sealed so hopefully none got in there.

Cheers.