Someone employ this man to make training videos! Accurate, clear and well thought through.

Mr Ward you have the best teaching voice I have heard in a very long time! Love your videos, very informative, thank you.

Hi John, simply the best. no additional explanation needed on any of your videos. I wish you were my college lecturer when I was at college, as I did not understand most of what he said it's only years later through practice I realise what he was trying to explain could have been said so much more in a simple and practical way. Good stuff, all the best.

John Ward, sincerely a big thank you for the content you provide, you have a clean and no-fluff presentation style and you have saved me from electrocuting myself many times. You are a legend in the game 💪🏻

The best electrical info on KZfaq, very clear professional and concise

great video brilliant HD quality. ..And most of all I like your blunt honesty when it comes to cheap crappy anything. ..nice work

Crickey John, where were you when i was going through my 1-3 C & G Electrical installations courses? . I'm watching your brilliant videos as a refresher .I'm not actually working as an electrician but in the electronics field. I do this as A DIY hobby. Found your approach and guidance more helpful than reading & spending hours at college. I'm watching all your videos , i only wanted a quick refresh on SWA. Cheers. regards Del

Very Educational and well explained thanks for sharing your knowledge. please continue the good work Mr Ward

john is a great tutor and very easy to understand.

I needed to fit an RCBO filled consumer unit due to lack of space in a small cupboard. I usually fit MCBs, so your video was very helpful = thank you.

Thank you for making these videos, easy to understand and you take the time explain the terms you are using. I will definitely be using RCBO's for my CU.

'Cheapomatic cu from some diy shed'.......love that, you crack me up John! Have to say your videos are excellent matey, keep them coming!

Double pole switching seems to be common in mini-RCBO’s available in GB this year. Now it’s arc fault detection (AFD) that fattens up the physical size to two slots wide.. and the price to about £120 for a combined RCBO-AFDD. Still, progress is being made!

Well done John, nicely delivered. Thank you.

John thanks for the video ,you are the only one I who has actually explained what the white wire is for even though briefly.pity you didn't have one that was long enough to connect.as I have seen these grouped together .and I have seen these individually connect to each relative circuit on the earth bar,what is your take on this? thanks

I never comment but I had to say Exceptional video thank you, explains everything, I can't thank you enough

Great video and your voice is perfect for explaining things. Thanks

Excellent video as always , clear and easy to understand .

These particularly useful for lights circuit in case of any power trips you it won't effect your lights circuit and won't incomplete dark at night. Which could be hazardous.

Such a good teacher. Will use rcbos for my DIY solar powered pond project.

Brilliant, RCBO's the way to go. thank you Ian

Nice one JW, explained perfectly

What a guy! Brilliant teacher, subbed!

Amazing tutorial and explanation! Thank You!

Great explanation especially your discussion of functional earths.

Hi John, really enjoy your videos. Just wondering what approach do you recomend on say a 3 row CU if the neutral fly lead is to short to reach the neutral bar. Is it acceptable to put ferrule on the fly lead and extend it via a wago connector? Thanks

great videos. very helpful thank you. you make a great teacher.

Wonderful explanation, what a great teacher...

Thank you John very well explained.

I thank you alot john to this fantastic & great video

Thx For sharing your knowledge..... Really helpful .

Very clear, thanks JW

Hi John I started watching your channel about a year ago and all I can say is keep it up excellent, easy plain English description by far the the best on KZfaq . Just got a question what do you think of the lewden populated 14 way consumer unit with rsbo and should I fit spd . Thanks keep up the good work

Thank you for the demonstration,

Hi John. Good video. I just want to add a circuit breaker. It's a new CU and there is space for additions. Can you advise me?

excellent video, I am impressed

Great tutorial as usual

Exellent demo sir.

Thank you for taking the effort to share this. it was very helpful

Hi .. I have only just seen your series of videos. I wish I had these when I was doing my 2391. Thanks

Thank-you John. Ended up here because i was curious about what the white wire did.

Informative video and well presented. 👍

Hi John I love your videos. If you get time would you be able to make a video on how to crimp lugs? Especially in things like change over switches which all seem to use bolts as connectors so where you need to use lugs to connect to the bolts.

Hello.. Can you make a video on what happens to the neutral cable goes back to the substation or whatever in detailed.

When you have RCD's and RCBO's in the same board how do you deal with the live into the devices?

Hi J W nice channel, could you shorten the black cable and add a bootlace ferrule or would that be contravening the IEEE Regs?

Excellent explanation

i assume somewhat like a GFI/ AFCI type breaker used in the US. it is interesting that on the UK breakers is more markings of what is going on.

What a great video, thank you 🙏🏻

Hi John, How do you do inspect & test an RCBO.

What's your opinion on the merits of SP RCBOs vs DP RCBOs'. I see that Wylex (Siemens) have single width DP RCBOs. Can't see that there are other manufactures providing single width DP RCBOs.

Very useful info.

Great video as usual. Could we have a follow up video on testing with RCBO's?

Thanks Mr Ward for the helpful video :-) Does the above 1P+N RCBO have differential trip indicator..? Or, is its indicator merely a contact indicator? :-)

John, if you were doing this in your garage for a hybrid inverter, off grid solar. Say you had 2 or 3 rcbo fed circuits, with the functional earth, will it matter if there's a neutral to ground bond or not? I think I want to keep neutral and ground apart due to the grid AC in cable in case of dull days not charging the battery. Any advice greatly appreciated.

Hope you train the Mrs in all this good stuff 😎

"El Cheapo"... brilliant, I'm using that one 😁

RCBO is common in China since 10 years back. Their RCBO has an additional square button to indicate if the trip is due to mcb side or RCB function in the event of a tripping.

At 10:15 you talk about the black lead of the RCBO having the end of the wire being welded into a solid piece, how would shortening the wire and soldering the new end of the wire affect the installation?

great explanation. why the neutral cable size in the rcbo is smaller than the old RCD?. thanks

Be awsome if u showed installed a whole fuse box to a house or unit

In KSA we have adopted the US system that is split phase 220 / 110 what confused me is that in my home panel there is no bonding between earth bus and the nutral bus like most panel in usa in fact the earh bus is isolated from the panel. Does the earth work in this condition. Any explanation

Excellent video

Sir please tell how to check a original hager MCB? because in the market many seller sells duplicate MCB's with the mark of Hager

Thanks JW this helps

I've noticed that Wylex CU's have a slightly offset connection for the line busbar at the main switch (and the RCD's for that matter). This is slightly annoying as it means that the busbars must have an end terminal/tab, offset from the rest. Would be nice for all busbar"tabs" to be in a straight line to give more flexibilty in upgrades - e.g. replacing an RCD controlling 3 MCB's with RCBO's means buying another longer busbar to connect to the main switch when the RCD had been replaced by the RCBO's

Hi John, thanks for the video, I am fitting a new zone 1 bathroom light which requires it to be wired to a 30mA RCD, however there is no space on the consumer unit for another RCD. Am I right in assuming I can replace the current MCB to which the bathroom light is connected with a 30mA RCBO instead of trying to fit an RCD? Many thanks

I can imagine that RCD testing now using an RCBO for every circuit is going to add a lot more time to the complete testing procedures.

Brilliant, Thank you.

It is recommended to use a torque screwdriver now to tighten the breaker terminals . The torque range is now somtimes printed on the side of the MCB/RCBO .

Thank you John. That's me sorted in plain English.

Good day John...wanted to ask ..say you need to add just one Rcd and the individual circuits will be with RCBO...will the RCD trip as well as the RCBO (if there is a fault) if they are both 30ma? Thanks

Hello John, fantastic video as usual, Would you agree that another disadvantage of the RCBO is if it trips, how would you know whether it did it due to overload or due to current leakage? Disconnecting faulty consumer (i.e. from the socket) which exhibits either kind of the fault can be only class as a partial success (you can change the consumer) as you still don't know what kind of failure it suffers.How quickly and effectively would you recommend to detect it? Thanks very much, Great collection of videos, Kriss.

John, thanks for the videos. In the example you give, what size of cable is used to link RCD to circuit breakers and to N bars

someone said to me that the top of breakers is the (IN) and the bottom is the (OUT), you here said the opposite, is there a standard to this or polarity doesn't matter in breakers?

Hello John, I live remotely and am prone to power cuts. I have a 4kVA generator to get things running again whenever this happens. My problem is the RCBOs trip as soon as I connect the gen. I've put a good dedicated Earth on the generator but to no avail. I'm considering replacing the RCBOs with MCBs but thought I'd first pick your brains. Peter

Hi John thank you for the great video as always. On my older CU the main switch is only single pole which isolates the Line side of the mains supply and the main Neutral in is connected directly to a busbar. There is also and RCCB and a second Neutral busbar both of which are populated. My question is does it matter which of these Neutral busbars i connect the RCBO Neutral to. My RCBO does not have the attached Neutral and Earth wires like the one you used in the video

Here in Belgium , all RCD's and circuit breakers are dual pole / 3 fase+N in new installations.

hi just got a couple of cpn rcbo's one problem is that the busbar connection on them is set back from the other breakers how does one compensate for this and the other question does the neutral wire that fits into the rcbo have to be from the circuit or the neutral rail

I am in the process of changing the MCB into RCBO. I plan first to measure with a leakage clamp meter each individual circuit. Then if there is see which device is the reason and if it can be adjusted/fixed fix it. Then see the final leakage value and based on that put a 10 or 30mA RCBO in. So, I can finetune each circuit with a 10 or 30mA.

Hi Jon, if i want to install all RCBO's in my consumer unit, do i need to keep the RCDs that come with the unit? i've got 19 circuits and want to use a 22 module unit... thanks

I have one of those (B6) with a rather short earth lead. Can I safely extend this wire and fit the breaker into another CU?

Does this device work when the 220 is two phase no nutral at all for 220 the old system in ksa is split phase in old houses because I noticed the load side has neutral and l1

Are the narrow RCBOs even available in other countries than UK or IE? In most of Europe you can't get them. My guess is because they are more expensive, contain electronics, and are usually a single pole, so only disconnect the live. The simpler and cheaper double width modules, usually disconnect both L and N, and usually don't contain electronic, and doesn't require extra functional ground.

Any reason for the pigtails on some RCBOs?

Also another question, since i notice those RCDs are rated 63A and are followed in the right case by a B40, B32 and B6 breaker. Is that a safe setup or common setup? Combined they overtake the 63A rating although i know the cases in which you would consume at once 79 amps on a circuit are limited. Also i never saw a 100A breaker, here a single phase house is supplied with 32Amps, you get more only on a three phase setup but that requires a different type of panel

Not a pin but a bootlace ferrule, as the typical pin is not rated for 32A of current flow. Interesting, as here in South Africa the Heinemann breakers are top entry only, so all the wiring is power in at top and tails at the bottom as opposed to the UK style. Makes for fun with DIN boxes as well, as those RCD devices will not fit here, you need a reversed one.

Great video John. Anyway from 9:30 you advice the RCBO's neutral is connected to the main neutral bar and the two RCDs as it were be connected to their own/different neutral bars, reason being it's best the current is kept separate. My question is the main neutral bar, from wiring standards will definitely have to be looped to the other two neutral bars hence the three neutral bars will be at the same potential, so is it really necessary to put each RCD on different neutral bars???????? Again, in the case where you don't have space to add more neutral bars, what do you do then??????

A very interesting video on RCBO’s. I am looking at installing a 50A MCB - Type C (not RCD protected) in my current consumer unit and running a 10mm armoured cable to the garage consumer unit. In the garage I intend to install a 6A RCBO - Type B for lights and a 16A RCBO - Type B for a double power socket (no ring, no spur). My question is do I install in my garage consumer unit a 40A - Type C MCB for my EV circuit on the basis the EV circuit has a Matt:e RVD Protection Device that switches both live and neutral circuits and if there is a fault. Also, if I fitted a 40A RCBO it would just fight with the RCD protection in the Matt:e Device and it would just be a toss-up which tripped first?

Thanks!

nice video. what about the values written in boxes (6000 & 3) in front of RCBO?

can you run two radial circuits on the one rcbo?

Thankyou

220 v 60Hz this breaker is possible?

Another superb video John, regarding not shortening the neutral lead on the RCBO, Is it ok to shorten then fit a Ferrule?

What about cables colors, etc black on N bar 7:34. Sorry its not working like this!

Would it be acceptable to solder the end of that neutral run to make a nice connection to the N bus bar? I have terrible OCD and couldn’t cope with the untidiness of the extra wire.

Hi John a great video what happens if you have more rcbo than the main neutral bar holds

Thanks John

Hi John. Quick queery . I need to fit a new consumer unit to replace a really ancient one, and to increase the number of circuits from eight to twelve with dual RCDs and RCBO's Due to new building work I am having to resite a new CU about one meter below and to the left of it's existing position. This will make it nessersary to extend the existing circuit cables to the new position. Qu. Can I extend each cable using it's own independent connectors (three /circuit) inside a connection box on the site of the old CU and so extend the existing cables to the new consumer unit. ? Your Advice would be appreciated. Edward Birch