ECN Forum Forums Photo Discussion Forums Photos for General Discussion Arcing in box (UK)

LOL!

"Made in England" is the warning label on Lucas electric components.

I've had light switches where some genius had split a length of zip cord in half, wrapped one wire in elektric tape and embedded it in plaster to provide a neutral for a receptacle... right next to a straight run of conduit...

Paul,
I thought that you use residual current devices at the main over there. If that is true how was there enough current to do that damage?
Don

resqcapt19,

We only have RCD's protecting socket outlets & it's good practice to have an RCD on the electric shower circuit too. It is common practice now to fit a 'split load' board, which means you have the sockets & anything else needing an RCD on the RCD side of the board and the lighting and other stuff such as immersion heater, boiler etc on the non RCD side. Most older installations did not have an RCD at all. On installations where the earth is provided solely by an earth rod or 'electrode' then the whole installation needs to be covered by a 100mA time delayed RCD with the sockets having additional protection via a 30mA RCD. At a guess the installation in question here was via an older style "Wylex" brand rewireable fuse box & probably has no RCD covering the installation.
The switch looks like it was badly terminated, the outer sheath was brought too far into the box (messy) and the conductors were stripped off too much causing the copper to touch the case. I don't like 16mm back boxes as there just too tight, I would rather spend 2 more mins and get a nice 25mm box in there.




[This message has been edited by Out Of Phase (edited 11-06-2005).]