Testing a ConduDisc earth electrode system at a railway station

In this video i travel to a location on the rail to practice some earth electrode testing with Paul Meenan from the e5 group.
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The works carried out in the video and the opinions shared are my own, and not representative of the associates and companies in the video.
This content is purely for entertainment purposes and is in no way a "how to", tutorial or educational video.
Please consult an electrician when dealing with any electrical installations.
#electricianlife #electrical #electricalengineering

[@jamessparks7962]

Breaks my heart I never got to work alongside somebody as knowledgeable, and willing to teach as Paul during my apprenticeship. This video is awesome, and a little crash course on the 1741+ is gold. Appreciate your time gents.

[@ElectricianTV]

Absolute cracking video Mike. really well explained it was an absolute brilliant morning. Cheers for the shout out as well bud.

[@brianmorris1632]

Nice to see Paul in his natural environment. With a beard of knowledge too!

[@yrification]

Good to see this video. I got in contact with paul to ask about earthing services. I used a disc in a garden supply, along with a trench with concrete. It really did the job. The ground was sandstone, think it worked out at 1000 ohms per square metre. Ended up with 44 ohms, which I was pretty happy with.

[@tschubb1992]

Thanks to Paul, I have a little laugh at every intro, don't change it :) 😂

[@Josh__Stevens]

Paul is an absolute hero. Much respect for him and all of E5 for that matter. Good video.

[@andyclark1426]

Very informative video, definitely learned a lot along with Paul and the E5 group, thank you very much Mike/Paul for the video

[@mathman0101]

Great to see you back your in safe hands with Paul always giving back…👍🏾

[@PHealey1981]

Smashing fella is Mr.Meenan. Great video

[@electrician247]

Great to see you back posting Mike and looking forward to meeting again later this month! I think your Ra was lower due to moving the voltage spike among the farm. Obviously limited by the places you can position the spikes. Usually I find the Zs/Ze method produces the lowest results due to picking up the parallel paths in the ground. A good way to spot if you are in fact still tied to the PME system is if Ra is higher than Zs/Ze. I doubt you have 100s of metres to take the current spike out though and then position the voltage spike in the middle. Can only work with the land at hand! Good work chaps and stay safe.

[@ericthekingthekingtheking4842]

Didnt john ward do a similar video where he pegged out the lines in his back garden,

[@adrianajdelectricals2290]

Incredibly informative. I appreciate the time you have both taken to make this video. Thanks guys.

[@abdulseaforth6930]

Absolute class, that Paul geezer’s not to bad either. Learnt a lot plus a lot of food for thought. Talking about food, thanks for the tip Paul I’ll now be adding the tool aisle to my Tesco browsing when food shopping.

[@Danny-do2ov]

Absolutely one of the best sparks around.🤙He is full of knowledge. One day I hope to have just half the knowledge Paul has. Top Guys! Glad you back uploading bud

[@e5Group]

Dunno about that but your very kind. I’m only a now and again guy. I’m a client nowadays. But any chance to get hands on. Very much will jump to it.

[@sergiofernandez3725]

Really enjoyed this video, it was informative and great to watch you doing interesting stuff. I would also say this is a cracking bit of CPD.

[@ryanj3404]

Brilliant video lucky to have such good people like you guys making these videos in our sparky community!!

[@andyclark1426]

I never knew “uncle Paul” tested his earth electrodes 😂😂😂😂

[@rondo122]

another fantastic video, thanks for sharing all that good content with us!

[@three-phase562]

Thanks for a very interesting video. I don't work on railways, so not sure of their standards and work methods, but I was confused by the procedure and drawing you had that showed the earth test probes in amongst the earth nest. When I have done this testing, I was required to have both the voltage and current earth test probes well outside the area of the earth nest to avoid the reading being influenced. I also had to run the test at right angles to any other structures or underground services, where as you appeared to be parallel to the fence and earth track. Obviously the area seemed built up and there may be constraints to doing that, I usually have the luxury of trampling around a farmers field to two. For stakeless testing I use the DET24C from Megger, which is also a real nice piece of equipment, but doesn't measure touch potential.

[@e5Group]

Great observation, the earth farm is not your standard type. It’s a linear line due to space co strainers and we used the guidance in the Megger docs. Your more than welcome to come and have a go see if we can maybe share some test methods.

[@three-phase562]

​@@e5Group I apologise for the late response, I have been viewing the podcasts on your channel regarding the ConduDisc and re-watching this one. The methodologies that I have to work to for my earth testing are from EA TS41-24. We will either use the Fall of Potential method you use here, or the Slope method for larger earth nests. They don't really differ too much in the physical set up of the test. I will mark the centre of the earth nest and try and get the current probe about 4 times the earth nest size away from the centre. So I believe you said in the video that you had a line of 9 ConduDiscs with 3 metre spacing between them, so I would be looking to get the current probe out around 120 metres. For FoP the voltage readings are then centred around 50% between the earth nest and the current probe, along as they are stable, then I take the average of those readings. If they are unstable, then the current probe gets moved out further if possible and the measurements repeated. If the probe cannot go out further, then we look at the alternative methods available in EA TS41-24. For the Slope method, the readings are taken from 30% up to 80% and then the value for the nest is taken at 61.8%, usually by calculation, from the measurements that make up the slope. Looking back through the video, it also looks like there were some overhead power lines running parallel to the test, which is something we would try and avoid. For a straight line of earth electrodes, I would try and run the test at 90 to 45 degrees from it, to reduce the impact of parallel earth paths. You would like to think that the disconnection of the earth using the test link, would have stopped a lot of those parallel paths, but it can be a very complex test scenario. As I said in my original post, I have not worked on railways, so there may be other standards out there that I am not aware of. I have not seen the ConduDisc before either. I was just intrigued that some of the method used for the FoP in the video, is warned against in my industry.

[@mathman0101]

@@e5Group you know @Three-phase is a fountain of knowledge criminally undersubscribed brilliant thinking electrician and a motor expert a real speciality ….

[@mathman0101]

On a wet day you would expect the soil/ground resistance curve to be below your curve which given the sunshine one could allude to being a rare result at least for good old blighty 🤣

[@adoughertycontracting7243]

So much great infomation mate, thank you👍

[@kristianlaine9579]

Great Video, I work in hazardous areas with large earth electrode networks for (primarily) static dissipation. We test at 11 month intervals to account for differing weather conditions. We would disconnect each individual earth rod and test to confirm each rod's integrity. Is this not the case in this installation? Group electrode testing is sufficient?

[@three-phase562]

Yes, you would do one Fall of Potential test for the whole earth nest and compare it to the design value / previous readings. Individual electrodes failing would impact on the overall value. Depending on the arrangement, disconnecting individual electrodes can have safety issues. There is also the problem of all the multiple paths available from the nest around the individual electrode even if it has been disconnected, so it is unlikely you would get a true reading for that electrode. In the past we have continuity tested from electrode to electrode to verify the connections and underground tape is connected.

[@richardlarkin4325]

Hi mate, any chance you could do a video on unistrut? Different types of fixings, ideas of how to put different frames for different jobs etc. cheers pal

[@tomlowe4156]

Very interesting video I really enjoyed it, especially being a domestic electrician myself it’s obviously not something I would be doing everyday.

[@engpato1412]

Informative, do you have a website

[@SparkyJames]

Ok, so the earth needs to be so low for what reason? I’m used to a system where neutral is connected to earth at the start of every installation, is that not the case where you are?

[@keithquestedelectrical9785]

Excellent video

[@we-are-electric1445]

At 20 mins you say parallel paths will raise resistance - surely parallel paths will reduce the resistance ?

[@mikeburgess5218]

Great work. Very informative

[@davidpatterson1574]

Very interesting video-many thanks

[@arniewheeler4673]

brilliant, very informative... very educating

[@biker6991]

How important is RA? Which is the earth electrode only reading on a TT installation?

[@peterconnolly4608]

Keep ere lite

[@ELECTRICLIFE4U]

👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍

[@dansparkyintraining]

Spoke to Paul at elex really nice man 👍

[@anthonybragg]

Great video with Paul. Mike, I think the last time I did the electrode testing was at college all other times it has been with a loop tester. Do you know why TT supply and what was that alternative earthing?

[@Josh__Stevens]

Alternative earthing arrangement was probably the traction bond.

[@e5Group]

Each one was tested when installed. When testing as a collective it’s impossible

[@anthonybragg]

@@Josh__Stevens What is a traction bond? can you clarify

[@Josh__Stevens]

@@anthonybragg I don't do rail but I think it's to do with the return path from the rails when electric trains and third rails are used. I presume, and it is a presumption, that one of the poles of the DC supply is connected to earth (if it's a 750VDC system). So you have a bond that goes from the MET to one of the two traction rails or both, unsure. Paul will probably correct me here if I'm wrong, which I probably am.

[@robbiedix6775]

How deep are the discs buried.

[@e5Group]

600mm

[@mathman0101]

I have a dedicated fluke earth clamp meter. I don’t need for an associated MFT link the megger set-up is cool though. I wish people would read the original frank wenner method article which you can learn from - it’s a method which is a pretty old approach but well worth it though there is a bit of math involved.