Soldato
- Joined
- 22 Feb 2014
- Posts
- 2,929
Moved into our house 3 years ago there was/is some garden lighting that looks very old and knackered and wasn't working.
It is all controlled by an RCD switch near the back door.
A few weeks ago I started to look at using the existing cabling to use with new lighting.
So I replaced 2 lights nearest to the house.
I can see armoured cable looping into both of them from underneath.
So I connected these 2 lights up and left one of the armoured cables disconnected. (what I am assuming is the loop out to the top of the garden)
both of these lights have been working fine since.
Tonight i started to look at the remaining lights, at the top of the garden (approx 10m away) are 2 spike lights that have wires running into the ground, after a bit of digging i discover 2 x IP55 rated boxes, everything inside looks very corroded, 1 box has a loop in and loop out armoured cable and 1 box has a single armoured cable, so at this point I assume that these are the only 2 junctions on this "run"
The problem is that when I connect the 2nd armoured cable (the run from bottom of garden to the top) to the working light it trips the RCD.
I have had a multimeter on both ends of this cable and there is no short (afaik) between any of the cables or the outer sheathing.
so I'm confused now, I would expect in order for this cable to trip the RCD there would have to be a short to ground or at least some leakage.
Any ideas ?
It is all controlled by an RCD switch near the back door.
A few weeks ago I started to look at using the existing cabling to use with new lighting.
So I replaced 2 lights nearest to the house.
I can see armoured cable looping into both of them from underneath.
So I connected these 2 lights up and left one of the armoured cables disconnected. (what I am assuming is the loop out to the top of the garden)
both of these lights have been working fine since.
Tonight i started to look at the remaining lights, at the top of the garden (approx 10m away) are 2 spike lights that have wires running into the ground, after a bit of digging i discover 2 x IP55 rated boxes, everything inside looks very corroded, 1 box has a loop in and loop out armoured cable and 1 box has a single armoured cable, so at this point I assume that these are the only 2 junctions on this "run"
The problem is that when I connect the 2nd armoured cable (the run from bottom of garden to the top) to the working light it trips the RCD.
I have had a multimeter on both ends of this cable and there is no short (afaik) between any of the cables or the outer sheathing.
so I'm confused now, I would expect in order for this cable to trip the RCD there would have to be a short to ground or at least some leakage.
Any ideas ?
