Good old wylex...

[securespark]

Service has gone downhill in recent years.

I used to fit a shed-loads of Wylex and knew the Technical guy at the Wylex factory in Sharston.

His name was Ian Kenworthy and he lived, slept, eat and breathed Wylex. Think he had worked there man and boy. Top man.

I just used to ring the local number 0161 998 5454 and ask to talk to him if I needed any technical info or had any queries.

He retired a good few years ago and technical was all moved down to the midlands, maybe the whole lot was.

What the "new" technical lads know about Wylex would fit on one of Ian's fingernails...they can only quote stuff out of the catalogues.

 

[RF Lighting]

I've now found a proper cure for these wylex issues.

One happy customer.

I thought about just fitting a socket on the supply and an fcu for the lights as that's all a garage could ever need...

 

[sparkwright]

Interesting way of dressing the wires. IYDMMSS.

 

[sparkwright]

Right, I've got to ask.

Where's the remaining grey neutral from one of the SWAs?

EDIT. (In-line crimp, changes to blue conductor.)

Of course this is the replacement board, so some of the existing wiring is bound to be too short.

 

[Iggifer]

I'm still not sure about the new Acti9 MCBs. I do know they look properly awful next to C60 breakers.

 

[Echo the husky]

I'm still not sure about the new Acti9 MCBs. I do know they look properly awful next to C60 breakers.

I thought that today as I was ramming a new iC60 MCB in amongst some C60s. I can't believe the C60 range is now obsolete and no longer manufactured.

I've not installed one of the new amendment 3 Wylex DBs, but here is a couple that were very recently installed...

Sorry for the poor image quality, but how many defects can you find?

 

[RF Lighting]

I was the same when I first saw acti9 stuff. Multi9 was the industry standard for commercial and industrial jobs when I was an apprentice, and is one of the few things that never changed.

Having now worked on and fitted a few of the acti9 boards, I really like them. They're a bit nicer looking, there are a few improvements over the old boards like you can't accidentally switch on the busbar stabs without a device in place. The range of devices available is absolutely enormous - the best of any board manufacturer I know, and the build quality of both the boards and the devices seems as good as ever.

The only thing I don't like is that you can no longer route wires behind the busbar / circuit breaker assembly in type A (single phase) boards.

 

[RF Lighting]

View attachment 100073

I think we are going to see an awful lot of this with metal boards now being standard, especially from DI's who think they're doing a nice job who have never even heard of eddy currents, never mind knowing what the regulations require to prevent them.

I did a period inspection on a mill years ago. There was a 400A DNO supply straight into an MEM Glasgow isolator. Each tail was through a separate 25mm brass bush. The isolater used to hum quite loudly when the mill was on load.

 

[skenk]

RF - Domestic cu with no RCD's?

Echo - I can see:
Dodgy SWA gland and shroud missing
All 4 nylon glands look wrong plus tails&earth for each DB should be in same hole... what a mess
Is the big one even earthed at all?
missing labels?

 

[RF Lighting]

It's a cu in a garage. There's an upfront RCD in the house. I spoke to the customer about removing it and dividing the RCD protection locally, but he didn't want to go with the extra expense of RCBOs.

 

[Adam_151]

It's a cu in a garage. There's an upfront RCD in the house. I spoke to the customer about removing it and dividing the RCD protection locally, but he didn't want to go with the extra expense of RCBOs.

I'm not supprised.... Considering the price of Merlin RCBOs!

 

[Spark123]

View attachment 100073

I think we are going to see an awful lot of this with metal boards now being standard, especially from DI's who think they're doing a nice job who have never even heard of eddy currents, never mind knowing what the regulations require to prevent them.

I did a period inspection on a mill years ago. There was a 400A DNO supply straight into an MEM Glasgow isolator. Each tail was through a separate 25mm brass bush. The isolater used to hum quite loudly when the mill was on load.

One that always puzzled me is the link between a transformer and a sub station, the setups I have seen are in what appears to be 4x single core armoured cables, probably in the region of 250mm^2 each.

 

[skenk]

I hope you'll be billing Wylex for the CU change RF?

I have just unearthed 9 dodgy MCB's, and 5 EIC's relating to Wylex CU installs, and a note saying I called the recall line in June 2012. I had forgotten about it but what's the reckoning that Wylex have done SFA about it?

When's the guy supposed to be back from holiday, and do you have the number!?

Assuming they've done nowt, we should get on to watchdog etc!

 

[Echo the husky]

One that always puzzled me is the link between a transformer and a sub station, the setups I have seen are in what appears to be 4x single core armoured cables, probably in the region of 250mm^2 each.

They could be AWA cables fitted into a non ferrous plate, as cables with a magnetic armouring is not permitted to be used on single core AC cables. We did an installation with larger supply to a panel board using 630mm² AWA cables paralleled and all fitted into a substantially thick brass gland plate. Care has to be taken and a decision made on whether to connect both ends of the armourings or leave one end open. There is a useful PDF here which explains it a bit.

 

[Adam_151]

Back on the topic of this thread, I'm suprised issues like this are still showing up, I'd have thought that after 5? years. Either breakers would have either (a) been caught by the recall and swapped out, (b) burnt out and been replaced already, or (c) Be carrying such a small load (intruder alarm circuits, etc) that they'll probably never give trouble