Being cautious re electrics ?

Not that it means much to me but MK is moulded on the panel and there is a sticker stating MK Sentry consumer unit

Reply to
ss
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Read it again! I made absolutely no mention of valor. :-)

Reply to
Johnny B Good

It was more a non sequitur than a bad joke (besides which, I think you're confusing valor with Esso Blue).

Reply to
Johnny B Good

Thanks for the 'Heads Up' but I think I managed to cover my arse ("Ass" for the benefit of our American cousins) on this one quite nicely by using the weasel phrase, "Unless a crazed lunatic installed the CU (or reconfigured it into some unsafe state)". :-)

Reply to
Johnny B Good

Quite understandable, the phrase, "Once bitten, twice shy." applies here. At that tender young age, I could imagine it must have been quite a strong bite!

As for not asking why you removed the lamp and poked your fingers into the empty socket in the first place, I've no need to. It's just the sort of thing any child with an enquiring mind would do. It's the way we gain experience as juveniles to learn how to survive in the wider world around ourselves.

I didn't suffer my own "Light Socket Moment" until I had developed a much greater resilience to such electrical 'insults' as a teenager. Mind you, I did a similar thing with my homebrewed 2 valve Top Band 10 watt transmitter's power supply when I bridged the HT smoothing cap terminals with my thumb when examining it whilst it was unplugged from the mains supply, thus learning the value of including HT smoothing capacitor bleed resistors in the circuit and the hazards of such stored potentials in the HT modules of SMPSUs when they don't (or the resistor has blown open circuit).

In my particular case, the residual voltage was the no load 500vDC peak from the fullwave rectified 350vAC secondary windings which had blown two rather neat looking pin head sized holes in the pad of my thumb. And, it still had some 300 odd volts left over which I thought, considering the capacitor was only 16 microfarads, was quite an impressive result! All that pain and I *still* hadn't properly discharged the cap!).

Reply to
Johnny B Good

I think some folks may be missing the point Adam was making - that the stickers on the CU are not all from the set of stickers that come with a MK CU - I don't think he was suggesting it was not a MK CU, since it (A) looks like one (and I am sure he has seen hundreds), and (B), has it printed on the bottom right corner.

The OP's photograph, shows a MK sentry CU with *one* main switch - labelled with the sticker that came with it, and a 30mA trip RCD

*incorrectly labelled* as a "main switch" in marker pen since the main switch sticker had already been used on the main switch!

The confusion is coming from the mis labelling of the RCD, combined with the printed warning being a little to general in nature for the circumstances.

(accepting that it would be possible to rewire the supply to the RCD such that its taken from the incoming terminals of the main switch rather than the output terminals, you would have to try quite hard to be a numpty to do it!)

Reply to
John Rumm

I recall one new CU[1] I bought came complete with "inspected" and "passed" stickers all over it, but was wired such that turning on the RCD would have shorted the incoming supply! So a sanity check of the interconnects (not to mention tightening the screws) is always a good investment of 5 mins.

[1] Can't remember if it was a Contactum or a Hager now....
Reply to
John Rumm

No, it was a joke. And I doubt he's confusing anything either.

NT

Reply to
tabbypurr

Why would I read it again, to come up with a better joke? Your turn.

NT

Reply to
tabbypurr

No disagreement with any of the above, but regardless of whether or not the actual label is genuine, the *wording* is identical to that on MK's labels ...

Reply to
Andy Burns

In article , ARW writes

Well there was one in mine. Do you rely on apprentices to unwrap them?

Reply to
bert

Only if you don't understands the words "bottom right"

Reply to
bert

And the sticker is identical to the one which came with my MK CU albeit a few years ago.

Reply to
bert

In article , snipped-for-privacy@yahoo.co.uk writes

They keep me in the pink

Reply to
bert

Is this "let's be obtuse week"? ;-)

Yes I realise the wording is similar. It even makes sense if you do encounter a CU with more than one main switch. However you don't often see them. The one posted by the OP does not include more than one main switch. It just has an RCD inappropriately labelled as one in all likelihood (with appropriate caveats about someone doing something "unusual" with the normal wiring of the CU).

Reply to
John Rumm

and, so what?

I was not disputing the wording of the big label, only the had written wording on the RCD.

The wording of the big label is "ok" but perhaps not ideal for the more common case of a CU containing only one main switch - it seems someone is trying to save money with one label to cover both situations.

In the OPs case, it means to isolate it, you need to turn off one switch.

If the same sticker were on a box that did genuinely have a pair of main switches (i.e. the big read toggle two module wide things), then it would be correct that both need turning off for full isolation.

Reply to
John Rumm

The seal on mine also came with an additional paper seal across the two halves of the fitting.

Reply to
alan_m

I wasn't , but thought that to continue would get on his Wick.

G.Harman

Reply to
damduck-egg

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