Discuss Bit of a long shot, new cover for 20 y/o contactum board? in the Electrical Forum area at ElectriciansForums.net

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Mattja

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Metal Contactum board installed 1998 according to the labelling. Unfortunately it has a plastic flap covering the front of the devices. Anyone know if it's possible to cheaply get a new cover with a metal flap? Would be much easier than taking the whole board out, and seems silly to update all the innards and leave that one thing non-compliant with current regs.

If anyone cares why I'm updating the innards:
Currently has a 100A 30ma main switch with 11 circuits coming off it, RCD has been tripping lately, only when all the outside lights (on several circuits) and the inside lights are on together apparently, and then only intermittently. After testing and inspecting including taking apart everything outside to check it's not full of stuff and looking for any damaged cables, with no culprit I can find besides some low IR (but just about acceptable), I've put it down as combined leakage just tripping the RCD. Splitting it from 1 RCD to 11 RCBOs (with a normal MS) will either sort that, or if I'm wrong pinpoint the problem circuit, and of course mean they don't lose all power when something does trip!
 
You need to test the whole installation Mate, what was the IR reading out of interest?
 
As above totally pointless when another 40 quid will change the whole thing
 
Probably even cheaper just to buy a fully loaded rcbo board

I don't think I would ever bother to reuse an old enclosure for the sake of 20-30quid ,
 
We used to fit those boards when I was an apprentice, great boards but RCBO's were a pain until they revised the design and made the board taller.
 
Figured as much, a shame though, I'm sure you guys get the same feeling sometimes of 'shame to throw that out'. That and a bit of time/effort saved.

Don't worry Pete I'll get to that before the board change. Off the top of my head I think the worst IR was 1.9Mohms (testing from combined L & N to earth at 250V).

Purpose of the first visit was just to see if there's something to be found wrong with the outside lights, since the RCD hasn't tripped with them off, and advise on what needs doing. Customer is understandably annoyed about the whole house losing power when the RCD trips, so after explaining that these days we use 2 or more RCDs or RCBOs and what these do he's keen to get everything on RCBOs regardless of being able to stop the current RCD tripping intermittently or not (pretty fancy place too, he won't miss a few pennies on RCBOs).
 
You could fabricate one should not be too difficult to get a bit of sheet steel and fashion it into the shape of the plastic lid surely?
 
Figured as much, a shame though, I'm sure you guys get the same feeling sometimes of 'shame to throw that out'. That and a bit of time/effort saved.

Don't worry Pete I'll get to that before the board change. Off the top of my head I think the worst IR was 1.9Mohms (testing from combined L & N to earth at 250V).

Purpose of the first visit was just to see if there's something to be found wrong with the outside lights, since the RCD hasn't tripped with them off, and advise on what needs doing. Customer is understandably annoyed about the whole house losing power when the RCD trips, so after explaining that these days we use 2 or more RCDs or RCBOs and what these do he's keen to get everything on RCBOs regardless of being able to stop the current RCD tripping intermittently or not (pretty fancy place too, he won't miss a few pennies on RCBOs).
I get that feeling all the time with random items that I think may be useful in the future and I just end up with a cluttered garage that requires a skip
 
Have a little chat with the homeowner and make them an instructed person, therefore, no need to worry, keep it as it is :thumbsup:
 

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