The ELD Version 2 – which meets the requirements of AS2018.3:2002 – is part of a protection system designed to limit touch and step potentials to a safe level by cutting off the electrical apparatus from the main power supply.

“Unless properly controlled, the occurrence of an earth fault can be hazardous because it can cause frame-to-earth voltages dangerous to personnel, or electric arcing which may initiate an explosion or fire when arcing occurs in an underground mining operation,” the company said.

Legislation in both New South Wales and Queensland requires earth leakage protection to safeguard personnel and electrical apparatus and under the Australian/New Zealand Standard AS/NZS 2081 touch and step potentials must be below 50 volts.

“To stay ahead of competing products, Ampcontrol upgraded our relay to comply to the latest standard; as far as we know we’re the only company that’s had our earth leakage relay independently tested to comply with the 2002 version of the standard,” the company said.

The latest version has similar features to the original relay with changes made in order to meet the updated standard requirements, including removal of the non-failsafe mode, maximum 500ms (millisecond) trip time and full type testing including temperature rise, humidity cyclic test and RFI.

“Our customers can either replace the old version with the new, or we also offer an upgrade service to take their existing relay and upgrade it to a version 2 which meets the latest standard,” the company said.

Ampcontrol said the unit has the same dimensions and mounting as the original ELD, which is Australian designed and manufactured.