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presumably this when you are abroad where they have two pin plugs ?I do, just out of interest but never done anything about it. It's reversed about 50% of the time.
Surprise, surprise, you are still alive, if the doom & gloom brigade had their way you would have been dead years ago.I bought one when I started MH ing, as I was told it was one of the "things to have" and also a reverse polarity lead. Well 18 months on and numerous Funster threads on the subject, my tester is somewhere and the reverse polarity lead is still only half made as I found it recently in the back of the garage during my "must clear this mess up" days.
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Correct, it's not a function problem at all, it's a safety problem.I am possibly mistaken but think that not too much equipment on my van is worried by polarity
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Sure, the pitch hook-up has an RCD as well. Carefully wired up by the expert professional that just got the polarity reversed...
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Correct, it's not a function problem at all, it's a safety problem.
The wire with the fuse should always be connected to live, not neutral. If it's connected to neutral, and if there's a fault, the fuse will blow but the appliance will still be live.
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At least it helps to freshen up the gene pool.If a fault develops and you start poking around investigating it with the supply switched on then you deserve everything you get.
You cannot wire up an RCD (or anything else) with L / N reversed when L / N are irrelevant or don't exist as in some or all of Continental Europe. If a system is designed for double pole switching it is inherently safer than one that isn't and allows for the possibility that neither phase wire is earthed ('L' / 'N' don't exist scenario). The UK took the cheaper (and arguably less safe) route with an earthed neutral and single-pole switching.
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It will confuse it.I've not stopped to think about this before but how would a polarity tester show anything if the supply is 'floating'?
RCDs give excellent protection against most common fault scenarios, but they are not magic.Like others have said if you understand electricity then you understand how much of a non issue it is on an RCD protected system.
If a fault develops and you start poking around investigating it with the supply switched on then you deserve everything you get.
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RCDs give excellent protection against most common fault scenarios, but they are not magic.
Some, particularly the older unreliable electromechanical type, or the single-pole type, need to be wired by someone who knew what he was doing. On many pitch hookup boxes, you can only test the RCD by switching several other pitches off at the same time. So when is it ever tested?
I'd have some trust in a nice modern hookup, but what about that old wobbly box on a post with the missing door?
We're talking about faults here, not workbench fault-finding. Toaster in the washing-up, cable trapped in a metal folding table, that kind of thing. The fuse blows but it's all still live. A working RCD will save the day, of course. Bet your life it will.
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Either RCD could have tripped first as it will be the responce time of the RCD that determines which one trips first. If both had 30ms trip times they are built to a tolerance so unlikely to be identical one will always have a shorter time than the other and that will be the one that trips first.Many years ago as an experiment, and to prove myself correct, I reverse wired my garage mains supply by simply swapping the incoming wires to the double pole main switch....live to neutral/nuetral to live
I intentionally introduced a short to the sockets to see if the 32amp garage RCD would still trip or if the normally wired 40amp RCD in the house fuse box feeding the whole garage would trip if the garage one didn't.
Note I was protected either way.
I proved my point, the garage 32a RCD still tripped under reverse polarity conditions and the higher value supply RCD in the house remained live.
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