ZA4 keeps dying

[GahddenBooi]

Good evening,

Since mid-2021 we live in a property with a Came ZA4 electric gate, which seems to be very prone to failing.

After it had died for the 3rd/4th time in less than a year, I called the original installers, who said that they would not come out to investigate, as the previous owners did not want to take their advice of sorting out the dodgy wiring, and that they had been out to diagnose more times than they care to remember. So that avenue is a dead-end. If the wiring was the issue, surely the RCD in the garage should be tripping.

I've had the outer box off and had a look, but couldn't see anything odd. An electrickery-savvy friend had a look, scraped a bit of residue off the connectors on the circuit board, and the gates worked again. When they failed again, he came round again, and said that the summer heat had caused a cable to short out, he replaced it, and all was well again (not sure I buy that... we're in the UK!).

Lo and behold, this week the gates failed again.

I took the cover off, and cleaned around the board and checked the wiring. All looked OK. The little red LED was not lit.

I checked the fuses, and noticed that the top 1A fuse was short-circuited. The other two (5A) were fine. I removed the 1A fuse, and fiddled with the wiring around the transformer.

Still nothing.

I shorted the fuse (I know, I know), turned on the power, and noticed the transformer getting really hot. So if I fit a fuse, it's likely to pop - for a good reason.

Any ideas where I can start looking? Is the board borked, and have I messed up the transformer?

I'm tempted to ask a qualified person to come round and give proper advice, but thought I'd pick the collective's brain first.

Thank you.

[SamA]

Good evening,

Since mid-2021 we live in a property with a Came ZA4 electric gate, which seems to be very prone to failing.

After it had died for the 3rd/4th time in less than a year, I called the original installers, who said that they would not come out to investigate, as the previous owners did not want to take their advice of sorting out the dodgy wiring, and that they had been out to diagnose more times than they care to remember. So that avenue is a dead-end. If the wiring was the issue, surely the RCD in the garage should be tripping.

I've had the outer box off and had a look, but couldn't see anything odd. An electrickery-savvy friend had a look, scraped a bit of residue off the connectors on the circuit board, and the gates worked again. When they failed again, he came round again, and said that the summer heat had caused a cable to short out, he replaced it, and all was well again (not sure I buy that... we're in the UK!).

Lo and behold, this week the gates failed again.

I took the cover off, and cleaned around the board and checked the wiring. All looked OK. The little red LED was not lit.

I checked the fuses, and noticed that the top 1A fuse was short-circuited. The other two (5A) were fine. I removed the 1A fuse, and fiddled with the wiring around the transformer.

Still nothing.

I shorted the fuse (I know, I know), turned on the power, and noticed the transformer getting really hot. So if I fit a fuse, it's likely to pop - for a good reason.

Any ideas where I can start looking? Is the board borked, and have I messed up the transformer?

I'm tempted to ask a qualified person to come round and give proper advice, but thought I'd pick the collective's brain first.

Thank you.

Hi,

Have you tested the output from the transformer? Are you susceptible to power outages/surges in your area? It sounds to me like the board could be getting a surge of power every so often, this can be rectified why wiring an in-line surge protector into the supply circuit.

[GahddenBooi]

<snipped>

Hi,

Have you tested the output from the transformer? Are you susceptible to power outages/surges in your area? It sounds to me like the board could be getting a surge of power every so often, this can be rectified why wiring an in-line surge protector into the supply circuit.

Thanks for the advice - will certainly do so. What should I expect? 

There are two banks of connectors - one with 0/12v/24v connections (blue/purple/orange cables respectively), and the other with L1T, L2T and CT (white/red/black respectively). The latter has four connectors to choose from for CT (1-4) depending on the motor torque requirements. CT is currently connected to nr2.

No power outages/surges worth mentioning.

[SamA]

<snipped>

Hi,

Have you tested the output from the transformer? Are you susceptible to power outages/surges in your area? It sounds to me like the board could be getting a surge of power every so often, this can be rectified why wiring an in-line surge protector into the supply circuit.

Thanks for the advice - will certainly do so. What should I expect? 

There are two banks of connectors - one with 0/12v/24v connections (blue/purple/orange cables respectively), and the other with L1T, L2T and CT (white/red/black respectively). The latter has four connectors to choose from for CT (1-4) depending on the motor torque requirements. CT is currently connected to nr2.

No power outages/surges worth mentioning.

Hi, 

You would be testing out of L1 and L2, you should expect to see 230v. I would recommend getting an electrician to check the full circuit.

Sam.

[Abbadon]

on my ZA4, the original installer wired the incoming mains straight from armored cable cores, to the connector that plugs in the board, which put huge strain on that connector, which eventually failed the solder at the board. I remedied by junctioning the solid cores to some large gage flexible cable, to take the strain off the connector and the area of the board the receptacle is soldered.

I repaired my original board, which worked until recently, when other faults occurred.

If the transformer is getting warm, could this be a symptom of mismatch in the torque configured at transformer vs the motors installed, or a symptom of excess friction in the motor setup overloading the transformer? Maybe a mismatch between the motors wiring, putting imbalanced load on the transformer?

Do you know what the "dodgy wiring was? any photos of the install, inside the control enclosure, any other encosures for linked lighting, or any photos of the rest of the install?