Overheated?

[Lectrician]

Overheated?

Yep.

I suspect the crappy links between the adjacent din-rail terminals. Theis is the first box of a set of several on an 80amp fuse.

 

[Sherbertlion]

Oh that smell...what a treat!

 

[Lectrician]

My hands still stink - The box was red hot, but no smell or sign of issues from the outside! The guy camping next to it said he noticed it was hot but thought nothing of it!

 

[big-all]

that certainly could have been fatal

really really surprised there was no smell??
i recon they must have just got used to it

 

[xr4x4]

Why was it overheating?

What was the load?

I'm assuming it is an electrical hook up point for a caravan park?

 

[westie101]

I assume brown = live, grey = neutral and black = earth. Not impressed with the lack of additional markings on the cores

 

[RF Lighting]

Mmmm melty

I never even noticed it was single phase till westie mentioned it!


Was everything still working or had that neutral actually gone open circuit?

 

[Lectrician]

To be fair, there was blue sleeve on the top inch or so, confirmed in additional boxes too. This one actually looks a little untidy, the rest are smart. Went up through the rest on this circuit to confirm terminals tightness.

Xr4x4 - Yep, caravan hookup. 80amp fuse, load was around 50amp when I clamped it after repair. Would expect it to go higher. Terminals are 125amp, 35mm. The terminals are linked together to give an "in and out" for terminal capacity, these links are quite common for overheating - more than likely a loose connection on that link.

 

[xr4x4]

So it was the load through the terminals on the swa loop rather than the load from the 16amp sockets on the box itself?

 

[Lectrician]

Yep.

 

[westie101]

I've put the piccy on a Caravan forum with the request that if folk see or feel anything odd at hook-up points to report them

 

[wingcoax]

Lectrician, Had the original installer fitted the pillars under the link?

 

[bernardgreen]

Lectrician, Had the original installer fitted the pillars under the link?

Or used the right ones.

Those links are not always rated as high as the terminals when it comes to the current they can carry.

For the installation shown it would have been better to have had the "loop in" and the "loop out" in opposite sides of the same terminal and used a link to a second terminal from which the local load was taken.

 

[ban-all-sheds]

This one actually looks a little untidy, the rest are smart.

Overheating aside ( ), compared to some of the caravan site stuff we've seen posted here that looks positively award winning....


(Makes mental note to check connector block jumpers in fan wiring box in loft... )

 

[plugwash]

really really surprised there was no smell??

It's a sealed box so unless the outside was getting hot enough to start stinking in it's own right I wouldn't expect the stink generated inside to get out.