electrics help?

[Katya Robin]

bit of a long shot, but can any help ?

the big white box on the wall by my computer sockets has blown and all the 6 sockets are dead.

No idea what the box is, a circuit breaker? a surge protector? an electrician fitted it some years ago to protrect the PC equipment and can't remember a single thing he said :-( Yes I know that's very daft of me, .

there's a big red switch labelled 'main switch' which is ON and a smaller black switch which has flicked into off position. I can't see any way of opening the box to change a fuse wire, apart from unscrewing the front plate and presume the mains would have to be off.....

bit of a long shot, but anyone got any ideas? really difficult to get an electrician out for a small job. TIA

- Katya

[Grunff]

Sounds like it might be an RCD - are there any other markings on it? Is the little black switch an on/off switch or a push button? Any other text anywhere?

[Katya Robin]

thanks Grunff. Actually got it working now, unplugged everything, waited a while and flipped the switch again and this time it didn't flick off again. I've plugged one of the PCs and it's peripheries into another socket so hopefully it won't be overloaded again.

The black switch is a lever-type switch, and it's called a Wickes Consumer Entry Unit,( lots of tiny numbers too small to read!), no idea what that means.

- Katya

[Grunff]

Ah, ok - for future reference, the unit is a Consumer Unit (CU).

[Lurch]

On Tue, 22 Jun 2004 22:03:34 +0100, "Katya Robin" strung together this:

Not neccesarily an overloading problem, could be a faulty piece of equipment.

There's not a button marked T or TEST by it is there?