I don't know.


As a guess I would expect The cage clamp type main switch with the SPD connected with some spade crimps behind the terminal screws in the slots in front of the cable terminals, as that is how Hager fit their SPD devices when you buy a preassembled consumer unit, rather than stuffing the SPD cables into a terminal with the tails.


The codes printed on the switches in adverts may be misleading and not actually what you get.


Andy Betteridge.

Hager prewired SPD in a consumer unit.

Thanks Andy.


Has anyone installed one of these new REC 2s with the integral SPD? Hmmm I wonder why they still call them REC2s or REC 4s why not DNO 2s?

I think that a double pole switch does meet the definition of switchgear as defined in Part 2

I hope you're wrong - otherwise we'll start to need metal clad rotary isolators and FCUs. Where's the "auxiliary" switching equipment when you only have a single switch disconnector in a box?

 

but think about what the regulation is intended to do

Distract attention away from CU manufacturers making plastic cases that weren't quite as self-exitinguishing as the standards required?


  - Andy.

The only picture I have found of an installed Wylex SPD is on Instagram. 

https://mysocialmate.co/media/1978353385979545220/Bt0hew7gIaE


The installer appears to have used the same connection method as the Hager SPD in the photo above using spade crimps behind the main switch terminal screws, although now I am debating if the insulated crimped lugs are actually into tunnel terminals.


Andy Betteridge

I’ll go for behind the terminal screw heads. 


Maybe you can do that that on both the cage and tunnel terminals, I have not checked.


 Andy Betteridge

The reg does not require all switches to be metal clad, only those assemblies  of 'switchgear' - which it self is not all switches, but in any case a small subset of that, namely only those performing a similar function to a CU, i.e. be jammed full of final circuit wiring going here there and everywhere,  with common single screw terminal sizes for every cable size from 16mm2 to 1mm2.


Notwithstanding, I thing the amendment was probably driven through as being something to cheer up the London Fire brigade and be cheaper than a recall of all plastic units made without  fire-retardant additives. Actually there are some very good fire retardant plastics, traditional recipes with inert fillers such as glass and clay, and others that are actively fire suppressant that contain chemicals that yield either halons  or CO2 when heated, and really exciting things like polyphosphates  FRX as an example 

Unless the pvc wiring, and pvc trunking and conduit are also changed to fire retardant, there are still plenty of things to burn in an electrical fire.


If, and only if, after say 5 years, we can show that the no of deaths in electrical fires has actually fallen,  can we say with confidence that will it have been worthwhile.

I agree with AJJ that a main (three-phase) DB might be construed as a "similar switchgear assembly", but were they ever made with plastic enclosures?

There are plenty of 3-phase plastic DBs on the continent that are laid out horizontally like a CU but have a 3-phase busbar - as they'll comply with EN 61439 they should be suitable for use in the UK if you don't need annexe ZB.


  - Andy.

Thanks for all the replies,

                                    Hz