new ring for computer room?

Hey all,

Many moons ago i posted about a new CU and fitting

Well, did this myself which was easier than i thought, though time consuming! Put in a MK 12way split-load which i hope will be sufficient. I live in a trad 3 bed semi

Anyway, have now rewired the house (most of) and have three rings, upstairs, downstairs (RCD) and kitchen, 2 light circuits, 1 new 45A shower and 1 for immersion heater + 1 outdoor power circuit. Have yet to add seperate non-RCD circuit for fridge/freezer

My question is should i put in a new ring for my computer room? It basically hosts two pc's, monitor, printer, scanner, router, wireless kit, speakers etc...all the normal stuff. Main PC is usually always on. Is there any reason for putting it on a second circuit? Would i gain anything? Ig i go down the new route, should it be a ring or radial and if radial, what cable/fuse? Am currently putting extra sockets in this room for said kit. Existing socket is currently on upstairs circuit (non RCD)

Cheers

K
Reply to
kse
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The only real advantage of a new ring is that you could wire it with high integrity earthing, which is now required for rings expected to have large amounts of Class I equipment likely to cause earth currents. You would attach this to the non-RCD side of any consumer unit, although possibly with its own RCBO if earth leakage current detection is required.

To wire a high integrity earthing circuit, you need sockets designed for it (with 2 earth terminals). It is much easier to wire a high integrity circuit as a ring, as the earthing must take two independent routes. With radials and spurs, this is difficult and basically requires you to continue the ring anyway with just the earth, so there is no advantage to a radial circuit at all.

If large amounts of computer equipment are attached to a ring, it can push the quiescent leakage up quite high, making the RCD too sensitive to any other equipment and liable to trip, especially if the RCD is shared with other circuits.

I wouldn't bother with a separate circuit myself. I would put the rings onto RCBOs, rather than a shared RCD, though, so that all the quiescent currents on all the circuits don't push the shared RCD into an oversensitive zone and to give good discrimination between circuits.

Christian.

Reply to
Christian McArdle

Don't bother, not worth it for the odd nuisance trip.

Yes.

Fewer chances of spikes, and brownouts. Plus this one should be on a separate 100mA RCD (or none at all if you can't fit one in), as a nuisance trip could lose you a weeks work!

I used a radial, no point in having a ring for one room unless it is close to the CU. I'm using 10mm T&E (very OTT, but it's quite a long run, about 20m) and a 40A MCB. This goes to a 12-way switch box to control 12 individual 13A sockets along the wall below the desk.

Reply to
Nigel Mercier ®

If a nuisance trip costs more than 15mins work, then your back up and auto save strategy is seriously flawed :-) If the work is particularly valuable then I'd have chached write turned off and a linked UPS with auto PC shutdown anyway.

Did I mention I have 3 current backups of my data :-) :-)

Lee

Reply to
Lee Blaver

I'm contemplating this for my office. Answerphone, phone system and main computer would then still be online during outages. As all the sockets are white I thought about using different coloured ones for the 'safe' ones, should be obvious enough then.

Reply to
James Hart

pin turned 90 deg, or with a T-shaped earth pin specifically for that purpose.

Alternatively use IEC distribution blocks - those being the so-called 'kettle' lead used to power your PC etc. Then they are clearly very different.

Reply to
harrogate

Has anyone ever seen a standard 86mm single or double plate with multiple IEC sockets? Obviously it would need a fuse, but I think this would be so handy.

Reply to
Nigel Mercier ®

Farnell do a Rendar (their own brand) 6-way rated 10A, fused (and switched?) and (if you want) with spike protection for less than the price of a 4-way

13A spike protected in the sheds.
Reply to
harrogate

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