Tumble Dryer Tripping RCD

[Tut]

Hi

I have an Electra 37459V tumble dryer that has just started tripping the house elctric out on the main RCD. If the low temperature setting is selected it works fine, so I disconnected one of the elements and set the temp. switch back to high and again it worked fine. From this I thought the element must be faulty so I bought a new one, fortunately it only cost =A315 because it made no difference, the fault still remains. Obviously it isn't the motor or the timer because the temp setting wouldn't make any difference. Is there anything else that could cause the RCD to trip. Any help would be great.

thanks

Tut

[Sparks]

When this started happening on mine, it turned out to be the the RCD that was faulty. I guess it was the sudden load that stressed it out.

Does your RCD trip any other times?

Sparks...

[Tut]

It only ever happens when the tumble dryer is on, and the RCD is only 1 year old.

Tut

[The Natural Philosopher]

Could be you have a marginal situation house-wide anyway.

Try switching on a 3KW fan heater plugged in the same place.

also check for neutral earth shorts on the drier, or elsewhere.

[Guy King]

The message from The Natural Philosopher contains these words:

Or if you're feeling foolhardy and brave, open the plug and disconnect the earth wire to see if it still does it.

[meow2222]

tumble driers trips rcd

definitely foolhardy. A pocket multimeter will tell the OP whether the tumbler is leaking, one probe on E and the other on L&N with it switched on will tell you. Yes I know it only catches 99% of cases - thats a simple easy quick way to almost always tell you whats going on.

NT

[The Natural Philosopher]

You might care to remove the utterly lethal ambiguity in that statement..

Yes I know it only catches 99% of cases -

[meow2222]

er, ok :) machine to be unplugged, but controls set so it would be running on hot tumble if plugged in.

NT

[Fred]

A pocket multimeter won't indicate a lot of problems but is still worth using.

On all machines there are suppressors which are connected between earth - neutral and earth - live. I would suggest if you see such a can isolate it from earth by undoing the earth tag or stud and making sure the case is insulated from the drier body. Neutral - live suppressors won't give rise to earth currents.

It's a shame there aren't cheap gadgets to measure imbalances in live and neutral currents. Mind few cheap multimeters measure AC current!

[The Natural Philosopher]

Thank you.

[The Natural Philosopher]

But not mA..more likely A...

I found that a cheap multimeter goes a LONG way.

2K between neutral and live, and earth, on a washing machine motor that blew the RCD every time was pretty conclusive..I even stripped it down to just the frame and the windings. Looked perfect. measured bad. New motor showed no conduction. It worked.

In laws washing machine was doing this..that also showed a problem BUT after disconnecting the LEAD from inside the machine (pulled the spades off the input filter) and taping it up, still same problem. The lead had flexed and got cracks in it and damp got in..

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