Coping with latest wiring Regulations.

Schneider Electric has launched a new 18th Edition e-book that includes vital information as well as the latest products to help installers comply with new changes to regulations.

Nico Van Der Merwe, VP of Home and Distribution UK at Schneider Electric said “With several amendments to the 18th Edition, we appreciate this can be a lot to digest and can present some immediate challenges. However, we see this as a great opportunity for the electrical industry and we’re confident that our line-up of compliant products will support electricians, contractors, and our partners – ultimately putting them in a great position to adapt to the needs of homes of the future and giving them some much needed peace of mind.”
 

Amends to the BS 7671:2018 Wiring Regulations came into force on 28th March 2022 and Schneider Electric has created this guide for electricians to determine and understand the changes. The e-book provides information on the key amends and how these might affect electricians and electrical businesses.

These include:
Changes to special location installations including solar and EV systems, which is an indicator that this area of technology is going to grow.
Prosumer low voltage electrical installations and the need for systems that can both produce and store energy. This is a clear sign that future energy systems will need to work differently and have greater capacity. Installation requirements for fire risk buildings including escape routes and cabling. Removal of the CRL calculation and the increased need for surge protection.
Requirement for new labelling in some circumstances, including the colour of functional earthing changing from cream to pink. The company is committed to equipping electricians with the latest technology, tools, and advice to ensure the electrical industry continues to flourish. They offer end-to-end solutions for the 18th Edition amendments, including the Easy9 range of residential consumer units, which addresses the need for increased capacity to support homes of the future.

@SchneiderElec @SchneiderUKI #Pauto #Electrical

Faster wiring!

Wiring is one of the most labour-intensive processes in control and switchgear engineering. In order to improve automation in this area, Rittal Automation Systems is offering the new Wire Terminal WT. The innovation can deliver an eight-fold acceleration in wiring processing speed for control and switchgear engineers.

Numerous steps are needed to wire control or switchgear units; the wire must be cut to length, stripped, crimped, labelled and finally, the finished cable must be routed and connected. Wiring accounts for roughly 50 percent of the total work required in creating an enclosure, the lion’s share of the operation in other words. Thus, a great room for improving efficiency, which can be achieved with automated processes.

The new Wire Terminal WT, a compact and fully automatic wire assembly machine, available in WT24 and WT36 variants, helps make wiring more economical and efficient. As many as 24 or 36 different wires can be produced fully automatically in cross sections ranging from 0.5 mm² to 2.5 mm², without any retrofitting. The appropriate wire bearings have to be selected, depending on the number of wires. Cutting to the required length, wire stripping and crimping operations are carried out without an operator having to intervene. The printing system (optional) can print the wires black or white. Wires processed in this way are optimally transferred to the downstream process steps by the controlled classification system, which consists of a 13-fold storage system with wire rail magazines that can accommodate up to 1,300 wires.

The Wire Terminal can be equipped with a ‘lift’ option that enables a quick changeover to a variety of different automatic crimping machines if different crimping machines are used for dissimilar cross-sections. The standard version incorporates the RC-I insulation stripping and crimping machine. This enables five different wire cross-sections from 0.5 mm² to 2.5 mm² to be processed without having to change the wire end ferrules.

Consistent data management is an important cornerstone for the maximum efficiency of automated workshop processes. The new Wire Terminal WT possesses the right interfaces for this. The data from construction planning with EPLAN Pro Panel can therefore be used seamlessly for wiring pre-assembly. Alternatively, the data can be directly entered into the machine by hand. The pre-assembled wires, which the Wire Terminal stores in the classification system, are available for wiring. This way, the wires are sorted according to need so that work can be optimally performed with the EPLAN “smart wiring” tool.

The Wire Terminal WT can speed up wire processing in control and switchgear engineering eight-fold. At the same time, fully automatic manufacturing guarantees a consistently high quality. An investment in automated wire processing of this nature also makes sense for small and medium-sized control and switchgear engineers. The investment can quickly begin paying off with as few as 300 enclosures per year.

@rittal #PAuto #Systems

Wiring regulation updates!

Although nearly 15 month’s away it is not too early to review training, procedures, methods and safety overview in light of the 18th Edition Wiring Regulations.

MCP offers this overview on the more significant amendments to the regulations due to be published on 1st July 2018

These major additions and amendments are likely to be included.

1. Protection against overvoltage and transient overvoltage. This means protection of installations of overvoltage from within as well as from external overvoltage sources could be provided by Surge Protection Devices (SPDs). Overvoltages which affect human life, public services and commercial and industrial activities are included. In all other cases (i.e. domestic) a risk assessment could be required to determine whether this protection is required. It is suggested that in these circumstances, (for a single dwelling) where the total economic value of the installation is less than 5 times the value of an SPD, this may not need to be used. It will be interesting to see how demographic differences in dwelling costs can be included within this calculation.
2. Protection against Fire has been around ever since electricity has been used within buildings however although RCDs may be used to reduce the effect of fire, these do not distinguish between series or parallel arcing between live conductors. For this reason, the BS7671:2018 will include for the installation of arc fault detection devices (AFDD) to reduce the risks of faults within the fixed installation.
3. Section 753 (Floor and Ceiling heating Systems) will be extended to include for embedded electric surface heating. This will apply to electric heating systems for de-icing and frost protection for both internal as well as external conditions. Areas to be included are heating systems for walls, floors, ceilings, roofs, drainpipes, gutters, pipes, stairs, and roadways, non-compacted outdoor areas (playgrounds & lawns). As walls are more susceptible to potential damage than floors, protection will be required to heating systems within these areas from penetration of the heating elements by (for example) earthed metallic grids.
4. A new section to provide for Energy Efficiency will also be included which will address the ever increasing need to reduce the energy consumption of installations. Draft proposals provide the client with the ability to specify the level of energy efficiency to be applied to the electrical installation (e.g. transformer & power factor correction). These efficiency measures can be added together to provide a class of “electrical installation efficiency” ranging from EIEC0 to EIEC4 (dependant on the efficiency of the systems). This section will cover vehicle charging points, lighting, metering, cable losses, transformer losses, PF correction and harmonics.

 #mcpeurope #PAuto #Britain #Standards

Wiring system

Rittal’s wiring system for Ri4Power facilitates vertical and horizontal cable routing in conjunction with internal Form 2-4 separation.

Where vertical cable routing is required pre-punched cut-outs are provided in the mounting brackets for compartment dividers, which can easily be knocked out and used to install a vertical wiring channel.

Horizontal cable routing occurs behind the front trim panels. This entails fitting a wiring trim panel suitable for accommodating a wiring channel while, at the same time, concealing the busbar system.

Rittal’s wiring trim panel consists of an inner front cover of the main busbar system with the option of mounting a wiring channel size 40 x 20 mm (W x D). For use in Ri4Power switchgear with 300 mm high front trim panels, the wiring trim increases the flexibility of the Ri4Power system and makes control gear cabling easier.