Home Photo Exhibit : In the basement, behind door number 2

I'm cleaning out stuff in the basement shop to see if I can make it workable, so I can maybe do one of the projects from one of the woodworking/home improvement magazines I've been buying over the last three years.

On one of the basement's outside walls is this big box:


I don' t know if you can get the scale of it from the photo. It's 42.5" by 16". That is to say - it's BIG.

And inside is this :

Now, it's right by the electrical panel, and clearly related to that. However, an electrician who was out to the house doing some other stuff said he'd never seen anything like this. Ever.

"Best not to touch that," he said. Yeah, I guess so.

"Throw the switch, boss!"