What the holy hell just happened here?
 

Wife plugs her laptop into the 6-way adaptor which runs the shredder and her printer jobby as well as her laptop.

There was a HUGE white flash and a big bang, and the mains power to the sockets went. It had tripped the RCD.:mad:

We UN-plugged her computer and I reset RCD, no problems.:confused:

On coming through and inspecting the plug, it's badly blackened about the earth and live pins and the live pin has melt damage:freak3:

BUT:.........it hasn't even blown the fuse in that plug, or done any damage, apparently, to the computer, or it's mains adaptor:wonder:
Phew.

Plus I can't open the 6-way adaptor to see WHY it did it, or if it's likely to do it again, as it's a sealed unit:nono:

Oh, well, no worries, big red cross drawn over the socket that seemed to cause it:D

Have you got a power surge protector?

You've got similar electrics to my middle room light :D

Remember that big blue/white surgeBANG!

I had a 4 way that wasn't quite as dramatic as that but would arc in one of the sockets. It seems that the rectangular socket for the live pin looked like it was folded into shape, and was no longer terribly rectangular, so the surface contact was more a few points. Even modest current drawn through a small surface area causes heat build up, but it may well not blow a fuse or RCD until it shorts or grounds. Quite scary when you think about the possible consequences.

Same happened in a 100A switch at work which was for storage heaters.

Nope, only the RCD.

John: ought I to scrap that adaptor and buy a dearer, maybe better made one? I only paid a few quid for it from Wickes.........

But I have two others the same, and neither have ever given any trouble. They never get things unplugged/replugged though, one powers the HiFi and the other my PC and it's peripherals.

Sounds like an internal short in the adapter. As you say-try another one.

Les

Last week While playing music from my lap top every time the bass kicked in the speakers started glowing with bright light shining out through the bass ports was quite a good effect for a while other than the fear that they were about to catch fire, still don't know why it happend though.