Today we're going to look at the Aci9 Isobar distribution board from Schneider Electric
plug on neutral (PON) Gordon
well the Acti 9 range from Schneider is something you're going to be seeing quite a bit of on the
channel over the next coming years because the board behind us is one we've specified
for the rewire of our own industrial unit and if we've picked it it must have features that
save electricians time and you know how we love that ethics so with that in mind pick one save
me some time gordon okay well we'll start with the p and this uh that's you've mentioned in the
introduction and that's the plug on neutral okay so the plug on neutral so where does that come
into and how will it save us some time okay well obviously now a lot of circuits now have to have
rcd protection and that's going to only increase over time as amendments change and new regulations
come in and if we look at a traditional rcbo can let's have a little look yeah we're used to seeing
this neutral flying lead okay and we've also got a functional earth i see there as well so there's
two connections yeah so obviously that takes up time it also takes up space in the distribution
board okay and here's our one from Schneider electric gary i see one glaring mistake there we
seem to be missing the neutral connection which it needs unless I flip it over and there you can see
there's our neutral connection and there's our functional earth connection and where do
they go in the distribution boards themselves then gorgeous bring that one across flip behind
us so this is the acti 9 board loads of great safety features in there if you haven't seen the
isobar function here it is and we'll demonstrate that a little bit further as we go on it's been
around for some time but here's the new plug on neutral function here okay so the neutral goes
in there's the other one for the functional earth that's it yes simply just clips in there so let's
see one of those being fitted then fit a single phase RCBO got to make sure this tab is pushed
in on the side and the breaker is in the off position gordon before fitting it yeah so again
the key here is to make sure it's underneath the isobar tab otherwise you've got no chance of being
able to slide over when you connect it that's it fitted that's it quick super simple let's fit
another couple so exactly the same as process see how easy it is under the tab click done and again
you're going to ask me a minute i'm sure to take one of these out on you gordon uh so how
do you take one out yeah we've got just uh pull the yellow tab back out so just pull that out
into there and then just put it forward just gotta make sure that obviously your
isobar tab is pulled back as well and you just simply lever it forward and it's out
again to repeat the process just push the tab back in make sure you're under the tab and in
wow yeah yeah that says it all doesn't it was
simple wasn't it and that can claim to save installation time about 50
now the keynote amongst you may have noticed a lot more going on on this side of the board
including some blue tabs now which i'm suggesting it's probably a neutral connection then going
it is so that's the distributed neutral okay something else you can add to this board which is
only possible because of the isobar function okay so shall we see how we're going to fit one
of those get a distributed neutral let's have a look so I'm going to remove these two screws
in order to get access to the neutral so pop the two screws out and then the plate will just pull
forward so there's one key in your hand and the second one gordon and i'm just going to
pull firmly on this plate and take it out of the way okay i think the next one i'll remove
i didn't really need to do did i no i don't there's a subtle difference between the plug
on neutral board and the one without the plug on neutral gives me a little bit more room is
what i'll say so there's a top tip here for recording it now yeah so on this version here
with the plug-in neutral remove this tab from the distributed neutral bus bar okay use an allen key
to do so and then just pop that to one side you don't need that section just need the bar itself
and it's important you get the bar around the right way so it's just going to slide
into position but it's actually got a thread on that needs to be at the back so as you just
rotate it around to the back yeah so that threaded inserts where you're going to use put the screw
through to attach to the neutral bar at the bottom of the unit there yeah and then just firmly push
in in all the sections so you see i'm just pushing on the way down once you've clicked into position
it will slide down and be able to be bolted into position onto the neutral okay so we're
going to bring in that allen head screwdriver and obviously set that to the required torque and the
good thing is the torque settings are at the left hand side there on the board yes so just put that
into position and talk that one up and that's the neutral bar then fitted gordon we can go
about fitting the next stage here and obviously you'd repeat that for the other side as well
okay there you go talked up so the next thing is to fit the outgoing neutral links okay nice and
simple yeah so just slide it underneath so pop it underneath in the appropriate position I'm
sure you're a little bit worried now because i've just gone over the brown line conductor gordon but
why is it not a problem okay so this the isobar system prevents you obviously uh making that a
dead shot between the neutral bar and that brown uh lying phase conductor there so get that in and
again to the required torque setting you're quite right because i can't slide the tab across i can't
actually energize the line to neutral connection that it looks like we've made in that section
okay do another one yeah so again you decide where you're going to have your
outgoing ways that require neutral and just fit these links in the correct locations on that
distributed neutral bar it's very simple you know really simple process to do so again just
talking to the required setting and that one's in position as well like so got handy little covers
now they're in sections and the right hand side i learned that you go from the top to the bottom
and the left hand side you go from the bottom to the top meaning that in the future you can just
access them and just pop off the sections you need so i'll cover the neutral there so i need to get
back to that chord and i just need to take one section off yeah that's it yeah so if you want
to add a add another outgoing neutral connection or remove one because you decide to reconfigure
the board you don't have to strip everything back down to the uh to the to the bus bar yeah and you
see i'll just cover two over now so if i need to get back to either of those or both of them
yeah just one cover comes off and we've got access so pop those on i'm ready for the next stage there
we go last one in so here we go going to fit our breaker and rcd we'll come back to this at some
point really important tip now gordon in it for fitting it yes you're going to get them underneath
the isobar tabs if you don't get them underneath you won't be able to slide the tabs across to
liven up the the breaker once it's fitted so slight angle going and pushed it back into
position that's it so all it requires now is again returning the screws to required torque setting
get those cranked up and then we can slide across the the fixings if we want to at that stage but
i think just get those tight first and then we're ready to to move to the next stage we'll show
you in the presentation how to put this together later there we go that one's in as well and then
then just slide the isobar tabs across and then yeah that would liven them up yep simple process
so then just repeat i'm going to put some blanks in which is for future a future expansion again
pop things in and now we've got something here Gordon we've got a so that's another uh four-pole
RCBO that we've converted again we're going to look at that in a little while again making sure
you just get under the tabs yeah there before we actually uh start screwing them down and that's
a dual pole mcb for some of the developments we're going to connect to this board later
okay so that's double pole so we've got a neutral and one of the line conductors tabs go back in
and then just requires you to to talk everything back up to the required setting next so crank
those up i'm going to put that plate back that you quite rightly said i didn't need to remove
but uh it gave me loads more room i would suggest to pop that one back on and next the cover for
connections that we expose for the neutral that goes back on return the two screws believe it or
not there is actually a torque setting for these as well gordon one newton meter for
these garrett okay i've got to find the other screw i've just dropped as well so pop that
one on it'll be there somewhere oh come on guys yep there it is so pop that one back in place
and that covers returned and then wow so that just demonstrates how flexible this range of
distribution boards are and it doesn't stop there you'll notice in there we had a three-phase
rcbo which is quite a rare item yeah we did now obviously you've got a choice these days more
and more sockets need rcd protection yeah the RCD itself could either be in the socket outlet yeah
or it could be in the distribution board and we chose in this case but in the distribution board
let's see how easy it was to put that RCBO together so I'm going to take our VIGI RCD module
here and attach it to our 4-pole breaker to create an rcbr function okay and it's important we get
our mechanisms in the correct position the RCD needs to be up and the breaker needs to be down
in order that we can next open up the area here Gordon which allows us access to the keyway
this is the bit that means that both function together so in other words when the rcd trips
it will operate the mechanism within the mcb now you can see the two that need to be lined
up simply drop them onto each other they marry together really nicely and just squeeze so just
bring them together so click them quite satisfying doing that so that's the two sections together
you've got to top those connections up to the required talk so you're making the electrical
connection between the two modules so obviously the power comes out of the mcb and then into the
top of the rcd function okay so crank those up next bit's really clever after this go on which
got these tight there's a nice uh nice touch on the neutral connection isn't that yeah there
is yes you'll see hiding underneath this black shroud we'll see that in a moment obviously you're
thinking that leads a little bit long that's going to need to be shortened down it does look a little
bit long doesn't it underneath the shroud here is actually another feral connection waiting for you
we know like a feral effect so just remove that um over the sheathing sometimes easier just to
cut it so what i did there obviously snip it back you'll see that ferrule then yeah so that
is clever that's a nice little design feature there that makes your life easier trim it back
again we can just pop it into position and get the torque setting correctly for this one as well
so torque this one up and the module's almost back together then so nip that one in until it clicks
and then we've got a couple of other things to do gordon yes there's another uh another locking tab
that would just click into place yellow one here yeah push that into place firmly click that down
and then just put the terminal caps over the top as well just because obviously they're not going
to be used in the actual end and we can see here now that when the rcd trips you can see it breaks
the mcb at the same time so that's another unique feature with that board and what it allows we've
got your rcd module and the circuit breaker it's easy to configure the configuration that
you need without having to carry masses of different part numbers and again it's that
flexibility when you you know if you're in an industrial environment things are changing all
the time new machines come in all machines go out yeah that's what i like about this range
is there anything else that we can fit to this board in order to expand the wrench
okay so obviously looking at the catalog yeah i found some other useful options we've got
some input configurations we can have here and we've got this output this expansion
module to go on the top we might be adding in some contactors and some other control functions as we
develop the unit we're in here gary as always we're interested in your comments are you fitting
the 89 isobar system from Schneider in your installations are you thinking about fitting
in the future please leave those comments below and we'll try and get back to as many as we can