Earth Fault Alarm Sounds on a 220V Panel

In this article, we are going to learn about Earth Fault Alarm Sounds on a 220V Panel. There are following points about it.

1. Check the trueness of the alarm.
2. Isolate the complete group start panel for a lighting division one by one.
3. Check the Earth Fault indicator for status (still faulty or normal).
4. If faulty, then put on the breaker which is put off earlier and isolate other group start panel for lighting circuit.
5. Once the group start panel is identified, then individual lighting switches are turned off one by one and checked for the alarm condition.
6. When any switch is turned off and the condition becomes normal, the lighting circuit is marked and then inspection is done on the particular light for abnormalities.
7. Ingress of moisture is most common reason for an earth fault.

Alternate Idea

1. Instead of turning off breakers one by one for the lighting circuit, turn off the lighting circuit of a particular doubted area. This method helps when there are two or more earth faults in 220V lighting circuit.
2. Turning off all the breakers of a particular area and then switching on the breaker one by one will eliminate multiple earth faults.
3. When turning off lighting switches one by one, it is difficult to identify multiple earth faults.
4. Once the particular faulty circuit is spotted, then further break them into individual parts and check them for earth faults. For this, usually a megger against earth is used.

By removing the fuse of the two-phase lines, each line can be tested and the fault pinned down.