Category Archives: Electrical

Why touching neutral and earth trips an RCD

By | June 24, 2021

If you are wondering why the RCD trips when you accidentally touch the neutral and earth together even though the circuit breaker is off, here is a neat video to explain why. Basically, the other circuits will still be live and when the neutral and earth conductors are touched, it gives the current returning on… Read More »

3A DL1198 Downlight Review

By | August 29, 2019

The good: I tried the 3A DL1198 and it is a good budget downlight. It has all the basics that you should always look for such as: Dimmable Color changing switch IC-4 (which means it can be covered with insulation and it should be ok) Good brightness at 10W and 950 lumens. IP44 as a minimum… Read More »

Day 6 – Etec Practical Course

By | March 20, 2017

After arriving nice and early at 7:30am, I proceeded to screw all the face plates in, the power sockets and checked my motor control again. We then livened the board and tested the lights, and the sockets and then the motor control. The lights and sockets were fine. The motor control had a few issues.… Read More »

Day 5 – Etec Practical Course

By | March 17, 2017

On Friday Umit finished his board in the morning and during testing had issues with his motor control. We ended up helping him troubleshoot and found that a wire was in the wrong place. It took about a hour to get it right after which he passed and we all helped him strip his board… Read More »

Day 4 – Etec Practical Course

By | March 16, 2017

Andre our tutor was back today as we continued on our stage 3 board. It was not super difficult but was great having other electricians there to ask questions and observe how they do things also. There are lots of different ways to wire it that blindly copying will get you into trouble. You have… Read More »

Day 3 – Etec Practical Course

By | March 15, 2017

This morning the tutor was away so we had a stand in who had to manage 4 groups. We started a bit late but teamed up with 2 others who were doing their stage 3 work. We were suppose to work on practicing bending conduit but we decided to work on the stage 3 board… Read More »

Day 2 – Etec Practical Course

By | March 14, 2017

This morning we started with a 3 phase induction motor. The first thing was to identify the terminals by measuring the resistance and labeling the wires. 294 Ohms was the winding resistance. We then wired it in star configuration was meant linking V2, U2, W2 together. Star provides lower voltage which means lower start current.… Read More »

Day 1 – Etec Practical Course

By | March 13, 2017

Spent the morning testing 4 appliances. 3 heaters and a toaster. The toaster had the earth disconnected on purpose to see if we could find the fault. This gave us practice of going through AS/NZS 3760 of appliance testing and knowing off the top of our heads Visual Earth Insulation Resistance Polarity Key points to… Read More »