What a brilliant idea this. Anyone seen the new 'Lumo'consumer LED illuminated units from CPN Cudis, drop down the lid & the lights come on, so simple to see in the dark what's tripped out, the leds are powered by two AA batteries, why hasn't anyone thought of this before. http://www.cudis-led.co.uk/
Agree, should have been designed for the lastest metal enclosure, I can see other makers coping this idea.
Only reason we are going over to metal enclosure is due London fire brigade report on fires involving plastic consumer units. http://www.eponthenet.net/article/48882/Fired-up-over-consumer-units.aspx http://www.tvhsg.org/uploads/Consumer_unit_fires.pdf In 2012/4 253 LFB recorded fires where a consumer unit was identified as the source of ignition. Number of fires 2005/06 - 27 2006/07 - 28 2007/08 - 33 2008/09 - 21 2009/10 54 2010/11 - 73 2011/12 - 71 2012/13 - 220 2013/14 - 253
As the number of fires has increased by nearly a factor of 10 in 9 years IMHO it cannot be because of plastic enclosures it must be more down to the type of electrician tightening up the terminals and I don't think that there would be a tenfold rise in incompetent and illegal DIY'ers either. I wonder where they have come from? I have to be very careful , I did not really mean "Type" if you get my drift Incidentally I had a 16 way twin RCD CPN Cudis CU put in by an electrician under the stairs which is now the "electric cupboard" which has very little else in it. Neither are a fire risk IMHO. and being interested in electrics it p****s me off that the darned thing is obsolete after 2 years.
I fitted a split load consumer unit here five years ago to replace a ancient consumer fitted with a mixture of wire & cartridge fuses, rest of house had been rewired but, they never replaced the consumer unit. Did a job many years ago in a country house, there were a lot of consumer units of various sizes all around the house, each one made of wood & fitted with a door with a glass window set in it, all fuses were rewirable. Some of the cables still in use were lead sheathed, & in the attic, the cables were live, bare, sheathing having long rotted away & supended from porcelain insulators. Amazed the house never burnt down.
According to my assessor and the scary picture on his phone, its the ones under the stairs that are the problem. He reckons it all the junk they shove under there that catches light, I never knew 16 pairs of sweaty shoes and 500 VHS tapes was such a fire risk.
Presumably these are battery powered? I just keep an LED torch in the cupboard, but I agree a neat idea. Could easliy be applied to a thrid amendment metal casing.
It may comply if its ABS. Schneider and Control Gear Direct have AMD3 compliant plastic enclosures. This one may also.
I put a maintained emergency LED light in the meter cupboard, the light activates in the event of a power cut and also by a 'push to break' switch which switches the light on when the cupboard door is opened.I found the Toolstation switches rubbish as kept it kept on sticking. The light has been aligned correctly, but the units is out of square if anybody mentions.
I just have a 72 led magnetic lamp from ASDA which sits above the CU magnetised to the metal cover of the Workshop SWA termination box.
Din rail mounted power supply with rechargeable batts for the LED's, how often does anyone look inside their CU? The batteries will be flat (unless like we all know Joe public pushes his/her test button monthly as it says on the label to keep an eye on it) Useless gadget.
. . just to add to this, The fire dept's default answer to all domestic fires if no other reason can be explained is electrical and fusebox Reason I know is that I went for the induction course to be a fire fighter a few yrs back and they were more than interested in me owing to my background and the fusebox/CU aspect on causes of fires
Thank for for the positive comment about the Lumo board, these are available in Metal AMD3. you can buy from your local wholesaler an 8way split load c/w 8 mcbs for £61.00 and 12 way split load c/10 mcbs for £68.00 if you need any other information you can email sales@cudis.co.uk
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