Expensive UK surge protector teardown

having already taken a look at some cheap surge protective devices like this generic Chinese one with so many problems it's not even worth talking about uh I thought I'd take a look at a really expensive British one for typical British consumer units or distribution boards and this one is interesting because it's double pull it protects from live to neutral and Earth and it also has this uh feedback thing and if you look at the bottom it's got little pins that stick out of here that going through holes at the bottom here and it will actually tell you if the unit has been removed or if it's actually tripped and I can hear when I put this in I can hear slight click of micro switches this connector comes out so you can basically wire it into a feedback system that warns you when the protection has failed which is quite useful I should hope it would have nice features because this thing has a current list price of over 92 pounds compared to the one that looks identical by ylax which is just another rebranding of the same unit probably which is 80 pounds I think and British general who sell one for 30 pounds and even MK are a bargain about 35 pounds although their unit is wider but having said that that might be might be a good thing so here's a bit we're interested in it's this bit here on not sure how easy this is going to be to open I can see a little latch here so we'll shove this spudger into it and I want to mention I did not pay I did not pay 80 pounds for this or 90 pounds what was it 92 pounds which is about 115 American dollars uh I didn't pay that for it I bought it on eBay someone was selling random electrical items and this was one of them this is not coming out let me try and jam a screwdriver into it without appealing myself in the process if this fails this is very late to peel me if this fails I shall pause momentarily while I try to open this up but I'll just kind of break this seal and then I can we can pull it apart together one moment please Well that took unreasonable Force so this is not going back together soon that's all right let's get down have a close look in the process I took a wee sneak peek inside and so there are little soda uh bits the the release mechanisms the the over temperature mechanisms the safety cutouts that fire these pins up so I've got the soldier iron on I've also pre-drilled these so we can open that after as well so if I slide this out we have an odd Arrangement here we have a small metal oxide varista in this side just sandwiched in uh well let's get those screws out and well that's trigger the mechanisms first because there's the multiple link on this side and there's a multiple Link in this side the live seems to go up through this large metal oxide Barista link across and it goes down to the other side and then let me just double check this this goes in like this so the Earth connection is going to this little one and the neutral connection is going to the bigger one I wonder why they've used different sized ones well cast and space probably but the current flows up these pins well it's AC the current flows via these pins through this mechanism here and these little green flags that say everything is okay when the red thing goes up it physically pushes those little flaps up and out the way so let's do that let's trigger it so I'm going to pretend this one's overheating by putting my Soldier iron on like this this could take a while this is taking a while hold on let me wet it with fresh soda I have fresh soda here I shall put a little blob on like that and we shall overheat it I wonder what temperature this triggers at so it's Heating it's hidden it's not triggering is it it's going to take quite a temperature it's got quite a mass before that triggers that's a bit awkward it's like waiting for paint to dry yeah that's not happening is it okay tell you what let's try the other side this one may be easier so I'm going to wipe the solder on again I have to make at least one of them trigger before I take it apart let's try this one let's see what Ping the solder everywhere no that is quite a high temperature I think it is kind of melting but it's having to heat the whole metal oxide varista which is the opposite because normally the whole metal oxide Barista would be heating it that is not it's triggered so it's now gone up and it's pushed the green flap uh into the side and the red is now the most prominent but a ticket that's hidden by the window now let's push it and see what it looks like now it's tripped here's what it looks like once it's tripped oh the little green thing oh any red replace so the green is still there but there's the red showing right okay that's that resolved right and also that pin the red pin has pinged in now I can't get this back out again Splendid oh no I really have jammed it shut again haven't I let's see if I can not stab myself in the process of getting this back out spudger spudger spudger get the spudger in and prize it out there we go right let's get the rest of it to bits I may have to melt that other soda link to actually do that or I can just uh undo these screws here do you have a suitable screwdriver do I have a suitable screwdriver I think my super screwdriver is hey this is because I've been away so long everything is disorganized this will do this will do so here is one plate connecting to this matlock's everesture on the earth side with its little mini one is that smart in the one in the cheap generic knockoffie type thing hmm definitely smarter than the one in the oh it's loose in the oh it pops right out that's quite nice it's a little metallox Everest or air it says epcos oh I'm gonna need them to magnifying glass to read that it says epcos 620. hold on let's see if I can make that light up epcos 620. okay I know that red one is pinged up as well let's get these bits out of the way and take a look at them oh there is the little braided bit going up to that right so we can now theoretically hinge this one up and take a look at this big thing whatever this is it's a big flat metal oxide barista oh that's a monster I think it's dipped in a resin um is this going to come off with a application of a knife oh this one also says oh no it doesn't it doesn't say of course it says e-u-y-e-l-e-c-e-u-yelec at 3 4 SK 431 the four three one um is the voltage 430 volts D4 as K3 for abnormally expect to be the size oh yeah reasonable enough so 3 4 Square it's a square metal oxide barista see if I can peel some of this off or is it is it's actually it's baked on oh no no maybe it's not am I going to stab myself it has been done before is there any point taking this off it's revealing a big metal plate which is probably soldered onto either side of the metal oxide varista yeah this plate is just sorted on so this is basically a square slab of the material with this plate just soldered onto the side and if I peel a bit the end off you'll see the ceramicy stuff if I can peel peel a bit the end off no that it's not going to peel off is it nope nope it's mated firmly onto the ceramic but just imagine there's this stuff inside radio now we've seen what's in that bit let's get this open this is where it's going to Ping apart it's gonna ping because it feels like it should look spring-loaded things in it let's use Force use the force reason I saw a picture of Darth Vader sitting in a toilet with use the fortune I thought it was quite funny actually uh is this going to come out is this going to come out yes it is it's I've got a little circuit board there with micro switches look at that hold on get out oh I'll just lift the module out oh just spend the heart like that and lift this out it's a little circuit board which may be glued in oh no it's actually it's two parts here because the there's two little micro switches here jammed uh between uh two parts so I'm gonna have to split this here as well split it without splitting fingers oh this has still got uh most of a rivet going through it so that's not really going to help tail watch one moment please that was very hard to get out because the whole housing was such that the it looks like the actual switches themselves have been sat into place in the plastic housing and then the circuit board put up and soldered quite well put together I've also discovered something else the common connection here is the neutral um and I'll show you I'll show you in the schematic that's the best bit I'm glad I didn't pay full price for this that would have been that would have been a very expensive video yes glad I didn't pay the full whack for that here is the schematic let me Zoom down this so we'll start off with the metal oxide roosters themselves the neutral connection has a thermal fuse and then it feeds the end of both of the metal oxide wrists there's a big one and there's a small one the big one then goes straight to live so that if this one starts heating up it should trip the neutral connection and sort of break the circuit though it would technically mean that there'd be some protection between live to Earth but there's also thermal fuse there however there is also a thermal fuse in the earth and the neutral goes through that therm that thermal fuse and feeds the live one and also the Earth one which is a smaller one and then it's got that thermal fuse the switches are quite clever and this was probably one of the most sophisticated bits of it really but not really it was deciding the size of these I mean this is a monster this metal Ox overestra it's a really big one I wasn't expecting that and I guess really the chancellor being a significant voltage between neutral and Earth is fairly low it's more likely to occur in TT type systems um but that could also happen when you have the failed um electrical distribution system where they lose the combined neutral and Earth the tncs it's a really common failure these days that suddenly all the houses neighborhood will become live with respect to General Earth it's not a good thing cable joints they're not necessarily well designed anyway here's the switching mechanism you've got the common connection comes in and these are the two switches and in the green position everything is good in the red position one of them is tripped and it's bad so the common comes through links through this good switch contact Loops across goes through this good contact and then goes to the good connection so as long as the switch is in the right position the Comm will be connected to good and it shows that the surge arrester is still in the circuit if any of them trips any at all the common in this instance that this one a trip the Comm will go through the red and it'll go straight over to the trip but also because it's tripped overall break the circuit over to the good connections so it decisively shows from common to tripped that one of them has failed if this is the one that that trips uh then you're going to get a connection through here it's going to go across to here Loop through and then it's because it's tripped over it's not going to go out good it's actually going to go out tripped again it's a very clever interlocking system but there we have it uh The Surge suppressors they're something that is being mandated nowadays I think it's more to protect against huge expenses of the utility industry having these cable faults and uh so the cost can be deferred up to up to the users instead when it blows up their expensive little modules not that people will check that the indicators in them are good but um it's something that's been mandated these days and when you mandate something then they can charge whatever they like so they shouldn't really be that expensive I think the if anything the uh British general one and the MK One represent good value that could be in the sense that that's a replaceable module I'm not sure I'm not sure but you can buy the whole thing and just pull the module out and plug it into the holder it might make sense to choose their distribution boards at this point in time just because it's more cost effective to change components like that but there we have it uh the inside of a double pole British compliant surge protection device

Channel: bigclivedotcom

Views: 75,942

Keywords: crabtree, spd, surge, protection, device, distribution, board, consumer, unit, earth, live, line, neutral

Id: wD7cXGr-ZYs

Length: 14min 22sec (862 seconds)

Published: Thu Sep 21 2023