Elko Voltage Protection Relay

The nominal voltage in Cyprus is 240 volts whereas in many European countries it is 220 or 230 volts. Therefore many appliances sold in Cyprus are really designed to work at 220 or 230 volts. What makes it worse is that at some instances the voltage can go over 255 volts or under 175 volts. When it is too high it can damage electronic equipment and when too low it can damage appliances with electrical motors in them.

Normally the transformers used by the electricity authority have automatic tap changers which control the voltage but unfortunately some of them are out of order and hence we may get very large fluctuations during the day. Furthermore we may have system faults like a broken or loose neutral connection which may cause the voltage to go to over 350 volts which is fatal for most equipment, or we may have a blown fuse on the 11KV side which will cause extremely low voltages on the supply side.

For reasons explained above your appliances are always at risk and ELKO Voltage Protectors are designed to safeguard against such occurrences. The gadget you have just bought is programmed to cut off your supply if the voltage goes outside 175-258 volts. It can be programmed to different values if you so wish. When the voltage goes outside the set limits the relay inside the gadget will operate and cause a small current to flow to earth and thus trip the  Residual Current Device (RCD)  and thus protect your appliances from damage. If you are using a generator and the RCD is bypassed, then you must switch off the Protector as well. If the voltage is very low say 110 volts after a power failure, such a voltage is not sufficient to operate this protector and therefore unfortunately it will not afford any protection under such circumstances.

If you wish to reprogramme the gadget, please do the following but before you do that please plug the gadget into an unearthed plug so as not to trip the RCD during programming:

1. Press the “Set” button twice.
2. Press the “Up” button repeatedly in order to obtain the number “3” on the right. Then press “Left” twice. Then press the “Up” button repeatedly to obtain the number “5” in the hundreds digit. Thus the password is “503”. Once you have the correct password press “Set” button.
3. Now “rATE” will appear. press “Set” button 4 times and you will see the lower limit divided by five i.e. 175/5=35. If you wish to have the new lower limit say as 192 volts, set it to 192/5=38.4 Then press the “Set” button twice and you will see the upper limit divided by 5. After setting the upper limit press the “set” button four times and everything will be back to normal.

Note:
If you really want to protect your appliances more closely you should buy an ELKo Voltage Regulator for the whole house or for specific appliances.