portable generators and earthing?

[brianmoooore]

Bac in the day, when all the dairy farmers on my books were installing tractor driven generators, SWEB issued guidance as to how they wanted them connected. As well as provision of a secondary earth, in case the reason for the power loss included loss of the DNO earth, they required a double pole isolator switch between the meter and the change over switch, to make doubly sure that backfeed could not occur. The DP isolator was always to be turned off when the change over switch was operated, as was the MCB on the generator.

 

[loz2754]

Sorry, the link doesn't work. It's actually the link above but without the space between the words 'the' and 'iet'. For some reason it wont let me enter 'the iet' as all one word.
I'll try ------,
nope

There are some sites that don't seem to be allowed to have direct links posted here, the IET being one of them.
I usually use a link shortening site like tinyurl.

 

[timhoward]

I've read the article now and it's basically elaborating on what @davesparks already said above, but in a not terribly clear way. If someone was confused before reading that lot they would be even more confused afterwards!

In this order they describe:
-the most complicated centre-tapped setup (why did they START with this!)
-'common and normal', their words, Page 10 (this bit is actually quite good)
-non-compliant floating earth setup - really not sure WHY they included this
-small suitcase generators (IT system) - irrelevant unless for a single appliance

I'd suggest you
1) watch this video which is a million times clearer:

2) Read page 10 and ignore everything else, for now at least!

 

[HappyHippyDad]

I've read the article now and it's basically elaborating on what @davesparks already said above, but in a not terribly clear way. If someone was confused before reading that lot they would be even more confused afterwards!

In this order they describe:
-the most complicated centre-tapped setup (why did they START with this!)
-'common and normal', their words, Page 10 (this bit is actually quite good)
-non-compliant floating earth setup - really not sure WHY they included this
-small suitcase generators (IT system) - irrelevant unless for a single appliance

I'd suggest you
1) watch this video which is a million times clearer:

2) Read page 10 and ignore everything else, for now at least!

That was a fantastic video, thanks so much Tim (and JW). It's great when it all clicks in to place. It all made perfect sense..

Still not doing the job though. I'd have to work alongside @davesparks for a few weeks at one of his hippy festivals before I even considered it