General > General Technical Chat
Post a picture of your Fuse Box
AVGresponding:
--- Quote from: Whales on October 07, 2022, 06:07:44 am ---Dave & deadlylover: your fuse boxes look positively futuristic. I mean, you even have a box.
1920/1930's Californian bungalow in Sydney, no solar and only single phase:
I think the upper board is screwed to the wall, not hinged. Maybe the service fuse is behind that? At least it looks like there is no asbestos (if you ignore the roof above).
Lower Hager box with DIN-rail inside was added by sparkies to modernise the place some 20 or more years ago when I was very young.
Wasp at the top right is to keep guard, make sure no one steals our electricity.
Aww it's got babies ^-^
Meter is "properly of St George County Council". Sadly that later became Ausgrid ("bring back the PMG!"). I love these mechanical types, it'll be a super sad day when it gets replaced by a Borg-personality smart meter that has no spinny bits.
From left to right:
[*] Main switch
[*] K = 40 amp supply for electric pottery kiln out back
[*] 32A kitchen oven. Not protected by the RCD, something I noted when last repairing the oven.
[*] RCD (in theory covers everything to the right of it)
[*] A single 20A breaker that supplies all of the pottery studio building out back (LOL I expected much more, but I don't think it has a sub panel ???)
[*] Various house internal breakers[/list]
The hager surface mount box's lid holds on through the hopes and wishes of one screw at the top right that doesn't do anything. Inside:
(Don't blame me for any of this, I've never touched this panel beyond flipping breakers. Not my house, not a sparky)
It looks like they chose to use both of the brass blocks at the top for neutrals (the one on the right is probably post-RCD), ...but then twist the earths together and just tape them? Huh? Lol. Maybe that's fine, I don't know, but I would have preferred at least some sort of connector to keep force on the copper strand mating surfaces (I believe this avoids corrosion creeping in as easily?).
If you squint you can see bars spanning the bottoms of the breakers. I presume these are the actives. I'm sure the rust is there to make it marginally safer against accidental contact >:D EDIT: Sadly no it's copper
That's it, unless you want to see some haphazard connector boxes strewn in the attic above the plaster ceiling. EDIT: Heater is gas, stove is gas, bigger kilns are LPG bottle.
--- End quote ---
Hope your fire insurance is up to date, that is rough...
Exposed bus bars is a big no-no, they should have a plastic cover over them, which would have been supplied with the box.
--- Quote from: Ed.Kloonk on October 07, 2022, 08:53:48 am ---
--- Quote from: Whales on October 07, 2022, 08:25:10 am ---
Ah sorry, here is a better angle. On second look it turns out to be exposed copper bars anyway :'( not steel
--- End quote ---
Yeah. Always copper.
Here's one I plucked out of a box in a factory the other day. Notice the three phases and the offset because of the add-on switch next to each breaker to alert the folks in the control room. Every breaker is 3 & 1/2 din.
(Attachment Link)
--- End quote ---
Not always copper these days. Quite common to have copper coated steel or aluminium bus bars in the cheaper stuff.
Ed.Kloonk:
--- Quote from: AVGresponding on October 07, 2022, 10:20:17 am ---
Not always copper these days. Quite common to have copper coated steel or aluminium bus bars in the cheaper stuff.
--- End quote ---
A nightmare to figure out the effective mm2.
Miyuki:
It is without cover because I needed a "temporary" 3-phase socket (like for past two years ::) )
Whales:
--- Quote from: AVGresponding on October 07, 2022, 10:20:17 am ---Hope your fire insurance is up to date, that is rough...
--- End quote ---
Hmm. I was thinking there are some potential electrocution hazards here (surface mount box lid comes off too easily, not all of house is on RCDs) but I'm not sure about fire risks. Perhaps if a conductor gets loose in the box it has has a higher probability of the 2nd surface it touches being uninsulated? Or something else?
--- Quote ---Exposed bus bars is a big no-no, they should have a plastic cover over them, which would have been supplied with the box.
--- End quote ---
Yeah I was surprised by this too, every one I've ever seen has come with at least some plastic. Maybe they bulk ordered it separately to the boxes. I don't think it would have become frail and decayed off neatly.
Whales:
--- Quote from: Miyuki on October 07, 2022, 10:24:45 am ---It is without cover because I needed a "temporary" 3-phase socket (like for past two years ::) )
--- End quote ---
The contrast between the rough walls and the european styled breaker bodies is beautiful Miyuki :) Hope the house is comfy. Reminds me of the wiring I saw in Greece last I was there, some places were mudbrick (apparently it survives earthquakes better than some alternatives).
I can't quite tell, but there seem to be a few different colour wires screwed into the single bar at the top. Neutral and earth bonded arbitrarily there? Not just from the loose wires going to your plugs out the front, from the wall buried conduit too.
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