Please be careful!

Tom

Tom

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Please be aware of the dangers when using generators and inverters.

Your house has a Earth leakage unit, this trips with any leakage of power to earth from live or neutral at 20 Milli Amps.

When using the above, you have no protection from electrocution. Beware of leaky pumps, heaters, badly insulated electrical joints, terminal strip connectors etc.
 
That is good advice, I am a scardy cat when it comes to wires.
 
thanks for the tips Tom :)
 
Good advice - would you recommend a separate earth leakage unit between the gennie and whatever one hooks into it? This would only be about R250.00 or so (guessing...) and if it could save a life it would be well worth it...

Hennie
 
Is it the house Earth leakage they are talking about? If it is removed and someone gets electrocuted the person that removed it will be held liable. If you use a separate earth Leakage, ensure it and the supply both have good earths and that it is enclosed There should be portable Earth leakage units available that have a 15A plug and cable on the input and two sockets built into the face panel.
 
This is really a dangerous situation when running off a genny, there is very little protection unless it is installed properly. You could even endanger to lives of the munciple electricians working on the grid at the time when your genny is hooked up. My advice would be to get the genny installed by a qualified person and signed off with a Certificate of Compliance, these things have to be earthed properly and hooked into the main grid with an earth spike and the Neutral and Earth lines bridged before it enters the DB. A cross over switch must be installed to prevent Eskom power coming on at the same time the generator is running [if running through the DB], otherwise you stand the risk of turning the genny into a sort of bomb as there will be a big bang. If some one is hurt or killed on an installation and there is no COC you can and will be held personally liable and prosecuted by the dept of labour as houses fall under the machinary act. Please folk becareful out there as these genny's supply more than enough power to seriously injure or kill you or one of your family members.
 
Tom said:
Is it the house Earth leakage they are talking about? If it is removed and someone gets electrocuted the person that removed it will be held liable. If you use a separate earth Leakage, ensure it and the supply both have good earths and that it is enclosed There should be portable Earth leakage units available that have a 15A plug and cable on the input and two sockets built into the face panel.
Click to expand...
yip was talking about the house earth leakage.thanks for the info Tom :)
 
UPS and Earth Leakage

UPS units can be obtained from homebackuppower.co.za, after losing several fish I had to buy a 1400 watt UPS ( 2 deep cycle batteries ) and now know I have 3 hours heater and pump backup. ( peace of mind is almost worth the price ). Beware square and modified sine wave units as I tried a inverter from midas and it burned out my one recirculating pumps. After enquiring why, I was told pumps and electric motors are not designed for square sine wave power.

As to earth leakage and safety, Decent UPS units run through your plug ( connected to eart leakage ) and when in UPS mode act as a isolated transformer and cannot shock you to the earth/ground.
 
bashewa said:
UPS units can be obtained from homebackuppower.co.za, after losing several fish I had to buy a 1400 watt UPS ( 2 deep cycle batteries ) and now know I have 3 hours heater and pump backup. ( peace of mind is almost worth the price ). Beware square and modified sine wave units as I tried a inverter from midas and it burned out my one recirculating pumps. After enquiring why, I was told pumps and electric motors are not designed for square sine wave power.

As to earth leakage and safety, Decent UPS units run through your plug ( connected to eart leakage ) and when in UPS mode act as a isolated transformer and cannot shock you to the earth/ground.
Click to expand...

welcometomasa

Bashewa, thanks for some interesting info.

Please start a thread about your setup, love to hear what you up to :D
 
thanks for the warning but had a learnt from my mistakes, never put youre hand in the tank if youre bare feet
 
The whole unit was just under 8000,00 there were cheaper and smaller units but I opted for something that would give me 24 hours of heating and pumping backup for 2 Tanks. See Price list on True Power UPS and Battery Power Generators for pics and prices. The bloke who assembles the UPS units stays 4 or 5 plots from me and as far as I know the entire family is in there 4th generation of electronic engineers so they should be able to provide local backup on units way into the future.
 
My dad gave me a little 1kpa 2-stroke gennie, its just enough to pull my tank...
 
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