General Electrical Hints & Tips
Identifying the various parts of a consumer unit:
| In this example, the Main Switch is on the left hand side and will disconnect the whole supply. There are then 5 individual circuits with a Circuit Breaker each. These circuit breakers are designed to trip off when too much current is used on that circuit. This can happen if you connect too many items to the circuit or if there is a fault that allows too much current to flow. |  |
| the far right is an RCD or Residual Current Device. In this case, the RCD is protecting the five circuits on the right hand side of the board. This device is designed to switch off all five circuits if it detects any leakage of current to earth in excess of 30mA and to do it quickly enough to save a life. Usually less than 1/5 second. |  |
How to deal with a trip caused by a fault on socket |
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How to put up fiddly light fittings |
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