earth problems (1 Viewer)

[pkurzok]

hi everyone
I am in a spanish site where the power point has no earth. I am in an amercian rv which has a power conversion. To my shook i found my chassies was alive with 110 volts as all my jacks were on timber chocks. When i plug in the power tester it shows reverse l/n but i changed these over and it has made no difference. I grounded one jack and now i am only showing 2.6 volts in the chassie. What should i do.
paul

 

[pappajohn]

in my opinion you did the correct thing by earthing the chassis....but the wire needs to be of sufficient size and the earth 'spike' needs to be deep enough.
to be sure i would use 10mmsq earth wire and drive the spike in around 2ft (600mm)

Are you sure there is no earth at the post, are you checking earth with the socket tester ?

What type of plug is at the hookup post.... Spanish (domestic) 2 pin.....euro (standard H/U lead type) 3 pin ???

the Spanish/French type are generally earthed via a contact plate at the side of the plug and does not have an earth pin, though some do have an earth pin in the SOCKET rather than the plug which has a hole for the pin.

if there is definitely no earth on any other available posts, I would consider moving to another site which is earthed

 

[jhorsf]

Just to be on the safe side

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[motorvating]

If the earth on your electric hook up cable is broken or disconnected, you could get this problem, and because there is no earth, the RCD sees no issue, so does not trip.

If it ain't the hook up lead you need to get a auto electrician to sort it out.

 

[motorhomelover]

sounds nasty hope you dont go up in smoke
do you know how your RV has been wired on the 240 volt
you should not be getting 110V from the site supply

 

[pappajohn]

sounds nasty hope you dont go up in smoke
do you know how your RV has been wired on the 240 volt
you should not be getting 110V from the site supply

It appears there's an earth fault on the 110v side, faulty appliance etc, but as there's no earth the 230v RCD cant trip.

strangely it appears, after fitting a temporary earth, the breaker still isn't tripping.

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[hilldweller]

It appears there's an earth fault on the 110v side.

I'd take a stab at it being an neon indicator wired 110 live to earth. Can't be much current if a relatively poor earth drags it down to 2.5V. Could even be intentional to show a good earth.

This assumes that somewhere where there is a 220-->110 transformer and one side of the 110V winding is connected to chassis.

 

[aba]

we used to get similar things happening on the mains distro that we used in the P.A. systems there were 3 neons that used to light to show various states of connection.
and basically if the red or the orange one was lit there was a problem.
and we always used to get a problem of no earth at a university site because they had a transformer isolated supply to the stage.

 

[pkurzok]

thanks

hi guys
i pull there power pole apart to find no earth cable going to the plug at all.
so what i will do is to make plug up with a eart cable coming out of it and drive my own eath peg into the ground. my rv does have 110 step dow transformer and a 240 step up of the gen set. does the earth spike have to 2 foot long.
by the way thanks for your advice i thought this would be the action.
how can campsite get away with this as you stay the rcd would not work
bloody dangerous more dangerous than my a frame:Angry:
paul

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[pkurzok]

the campsite is los delfines

this campsite i am at make up your own minds to stay or not
paul

 

[pappajohn]

what you have to realise Paul, is the spanish seem to get away with whatever they please....EU regulations are for picking and choosing from as far as they are concerned.

RE earth spike length.......the longer the better.
in a domestic house situation where an earth spike is necessary (not often these days) it will be 1.4mtrs long, driven flush to the ground, with a 10mmsq cable to the main consumer unit

 

[welsh winger]

It sound to me as if the supply is run from a center tapped transformer, basically 3 connections 110v, 0v and 110 the 0v center tap should be the earth connection, in practice its another matter, so with 110v on the live and neutral wires it equals 220v, easy to test put a meter across the live and neutral.

a further check from each wire (live and neutral) to your earth rod should read 110v

The above explains why you found 110v on your chassis.

Nick

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[pkurzok]

i am going to make lead with my own earth spike for this sitiuation problem solved