In the final offering of this five-part special, Gary Fisher gives us his views on the Crabtree Starbreaker range of consumer units.
The Starbreaker range has a busbar system that contains socket apertures for plug-in devices (MCBs and RCBOs), providing instant, guaranteed factory quality connections as standard. This means there are no screws to tighten on the incoming side of the devices, assuring the connection and reducing the risk of an error being made during installation.
Gary’s thoughts:
“When I’m fitting metal consumer units, one of the key things I’m concerned about is how it will look when fitted on the wall and this particular model looks sharp!
Crabtree have got an additional piece of kit to help with the overall appearance of the board in the form of a metal back pattress. Just fit the pattress onto the wall surface first and then the metal board fits onto that with the use of a nut and bolt system; very simple and effective.
Installation is simple enough. You will find knockouts on every side of the board with a variety of cable entry 
options on the top and bottom and with larger knockouts on the back. There is also plenty of room within the board for terminating the cables, and making them neat.
The Starbreaker range comes in a variety of sizes and it is here that getting the right board for the installation is important, as they come with a fixed live bar to suit. This is why I like this type of board; the live bar is fully insulated, so there’s very little danger of touching the live connection. What’s more, the MCBs and RCBOs just plug in, so there’s no need to screw them in place.
The Starbreaker range also features cable chamber and flame retardant cable grommets which allows for safe install of the wiring, plus a mains meter tail gland kit for providing mechanical protection ( as well as helping achieve the IP4X for the top area and IP2X for the other sides).”
