immerssion wiring

petorious

I wired a immerion switch but both sink and bath are lighting up with a volt stick can anyone explain?

sullzz

petorious wrote: »

I wired a immerion switch but both sink and bath are lighting up with a volt stick can anyone explain?

Did you check it with a multimeter for 240v , how did you wire it up , mabey take a pic with the cover off

petorious

I tested everything. It seems that both the bath and sick are on even though the switch is working perfectly and wired up exactly right! I just can't get my head around it.

Diggerdunne

What have you got the neutral connected to?if it's not connected to the correct terminal it will give you voltage at both sink and bath elements at the same time....

petorious

Live in red. Neutral in black. Neutral out blue. Brown bath. Black sink. No pinching sheath and correctly connected. On immersion brown to one element and black to the other. Blue to neutral on stat and white from other side of both elements to the thermostat. Could the be a back feed from the neutral to the sink element?

Joey the lips

I am going to move this to electrical. It seems like a better place.

Diggerdunne

Did you check if the stat is opening and closing. Put your meter across the terminals and turn the dial up and down....

Bruthal

petorious wrote: »

Live in red. Neutral in black. Neutral out blue. Brown bath. Black sink. No pinching sheath and correctly connected. On immersion brown to one element and black to the other. Blue to neutral on stat and white from other side of both elements to the thermostat. Could the be a back feed from the neutral to the sink element?

Here is a diagram of the immersion, your probably familiar with it anyway.

When the stat is closed (as in the diagram), only the terminal on the switch which is in use should be live, as the common neutral of both elements is at 0v, but when the stat is open (when water temp reaches stat set point, or a faulty stat, or set too low), both terminals will show as live, as the common neutral connection of the 2 elements would now be open circuited from neutral and connected to nothing, so the common neutral of the 2 emements will actually be at 230v, like a broken neutral, and so the end of the element in the switch terminal which is not in use, will show as live, as well as the one thats actually in use also.

Bruthal

petorious wrote: »

I wired a immerion switch but both sink and bath are lighting up with a volt stick can anyone explain?

Another thing with volt sticks is, they will light up when anywhere near a live connection, so if you put it beside a terminal thats not live, the live one beside it and its wiring will probably light it.

Sparkpea

just for my own knowledge, whats a volt stick and can someone explain the bath&sink elements? either ive the completely wrong end of the stick here or ive no idea what an immersion switch has to do with a bath&sink, hoping my terminology is just wrong

Bath= longer part of immersion with a bigger element heating most of the cylinder, sink= shorter part of the immersion with a shorter element heating a smaller part of the cylinder, the switch allows you to choose which part of the immersion is on, volt stick= a load of sh1te that looks like a pen and a light comes on like magic when near voltage and tells you no more.

Sparkpea

cheers gary

2011

petorious wrote: »

I wired a immerion switch but both sink and bath are lighting up with a volt stick can anyone explain?

Yes, from my experience volt sticks should not be trusted. Use a good quality multimeter. This is what I use.

I have had volt sticks light up even when they are not near a cable!

.G.

or worse,not light up when near a live cable

Bruthal

The question was why are both terminals lighting the light stick, and as said, its likely because the light stick will light anywhere in at the back of the switch, or probably if you rub it along your arm etc. they are not very intuitive as testers.

But it is also true that at certain times, both bath and sink terminals will appear live as stated above, due to the common neutral of elements being disconnectd from the neutral when the temperature stat opens. This stat is in the neutral as per diagram. Here is the diagram again with stat open and main switch on, so it should be clear enough in this case, both bath and sink terminals will show as live with a tester.

This only happens on immersions with single stats switching their neutral, and this is why the single stat switches the neutral, as its the only common point for both elements within the immersion unit.