General > General Technical Chat
Tumble Dryer woes
Wilksey:
Hi All,
My house wiring is typical - 2 RCDs and a few MCBs running to the side of them, lawnmower used to occasionally trip the RCD but has stopped doing that for some unknown reason, nothing has changed.
Anyways, my condenser tumble dryer has started to trip the main RCD to the sockets, but not all the time, every now and then it'll just trip, most of the time it'll complete the cycle and it'll be fine, seems to be worse when there are heavy items such as towels in there, as it was tripping the entire house I decided to get a plug in RCD and plug the tumble into that instead, well, it trips the main RCD still.
So why would it not trip the inline RCD in the first place? The dryer seems to get very hot so I am thinking it might have some vents blocked or it could be a thermal switch, do they trip short cct?
Any ideas? I'd like to keep the machine as it works fine when it doesn't trip but if it is cactus then it'll have to get replaced, I don't really know much about dryers , but it seems to spin OK and the rest of the time it works and everything comes out dry, no puddles of water anywhere, as I say it is a condenser so the water is contained and emptied after each cycle.
Other than replacing it which I don't really want to do, if I can fix it and avoid landfill I will, I am a bit stuck for ideas.
Any suggestions much appreciated.
Cheers.
Monkeh:
House RCD is either more sensitive or just faster operating. You can't put two in series like that and expect discrimination without a time delay.
The heater in the dryer is probably full of fluff. Clean all the filters, pull it forward and remove the rear covers and clean back there.
Wilksey:
Yeah I figured the house RCD was more sensitive than the plug in one, the plug in one is quite old now, so I might get a new one and see if that helps, the fuse board isn't exactly new, I can't see from the deck what is written on it so i'll have to pull out the steps and see what is written on it.
I have cleaned all of the filters in the front, but not taken the back off, I shall have a look.
Is there anything that you know of (I am in the UK) that I can get like an RCD that is more sensitive than the house RCD? I think from memory the plug in RCD has 30mA written on it, I am guessing the house RCD is either the same or better, i.e. 10mA or just faster, I think the plug in says 40ms but not sure.
I read a post on another forum that states their machine (different model) was tripping all the time, but when he removed the earth connection it worked, that was an interesting read, I didn't see any posts after that from said person mind you :-DD - I mean it would stop the RCD tripping :popcorn:
antenna:
Make sure you clean the vent in the back and clean the vent pipe/tube to the outside of the house. A plugged dryer vent will burn your house down faster than you can find a fire extinguisher!
Disconnecting the earth connection will prevent the RCD from tripping, but that is really dangerous, especially if the RCD is telling you there is current on the machine chassis. If you disconnect that ground and get between the dryer and another source of earth ground, you might not need a dryer afterward. If a sketchy bypass is really what you want, just replace the RCD with a plain receptacle and keep the ground connected. It will not be up to code and the fire inspector will mess up that insurance claim... but, ground with no RCD is safer than keeping the RCD and disconnecting the ground to avoid the trip. I would recommend taking a look inside and try to track down what is dumping current on the ground and not bypass anything.
BrokenYugo:
Take it apart and clean all the lint out of it, a surprising amount makes it past the filter over time. Being that this is a condenser dryer, also look for evidence of water leaks.
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