In article 48943e19@qaanaaq,
Andy Hall writes:
On 2008-08-02 11:51:18 +0100, (Andrew
Gabriel) said:

In article ,
Tim S writes:
Andy Hall coughed up some electrons that declared:

What are the devices above the breakers on the right or is it that
these are RCBOs as opposed to MCBs on the left?

Yes.

That reminds me -- the RCBOs do get warm, as they contain
functional electronics which runs continuously[1].

Is this because of their RCBO properties or through dealing with 10mA
detection?

It applies to all RCDs. The 10mA rating doesn't make any difference.

I rearranged
them slightly after that picture was taken so they weren't
all next to each other, so they would stay a bit cooler,
not that I have any reason to think that might be a problem.
Typical life of electronic components does halve which each
10C temperature rise though.

There are also requirements on not putting the more sensitive
RCBOs next to high current circuits (40A or above, IIRC) due
to magnetic interference.

Spacers for this or changing the order?

I changed the order.

The spacers were only temporary because I didn't have all the
components when the photo was taken. I always fill a CU with
MCBs even if they aren't all used. They're cheap, and they
might no longer be easily obtainable when you want some more
later on. (I got caught out with this once in the past when
MK stopped doing their original single way RCBOs.)

[1] I wonder if anyone's worked out how many more power
stations we'll need to bring all installations up to 17th
Ed regs (or later) over the next 30 years or so?

I suppose if the RCBOs are getting warm to the touch, they are using a
couple of watts each?

Probably less than a watt, but when squashed together, there's
not a lot of surface area to dissipate that from the middle
ones.

I have a couple of spares -- I could rig something up on the
bench to measure the power consumption of the RCBOs.

--
Andrew Gabriel
[email address is not usable -- followup in the newsgroup]