Guess the fault

[Lectrician]

Been to a pub today.

They could not turn off the outside lights. The outside lights are fed via an 18 way grid switch and consist of a handful of emergency maintained fittings and a handful of 70w SON wall washers.

First obvious test - check the switch module in the grid is actually switching. It was. With the 'out' disconnected from the switch, the 'out' terminal switched on and off as it should. The cable feeding the lights remained live.

Guess the fault.....

 

[Adam_151]

Assuming a 6243Y leaves the switching and loops around all the fittings...I'm going with the poxy PCB mount terminal blocks in one of the 8w maintained bulkhead fittings hadn't tightened down properly/had slacked off and the combined load of a few hundred watts of discharge lighting had turned it into a molten mess and sl-live was shorting to aux-live

 

[BigJon]

some sort of mix up with emergency lighting wiring maybe? Warm or freezing?

 

[RF Lighting]

Yep that or an em bulkhead full of water.

 

[Lectrician]

Yep that or an em bulkhead full of water.

I knew you would be the first.

Not quite enough to cause the MCB to pop which was a little surprising. enough to cause a pretty good short between the live and sw live.

I should have said it was all wired in three core and earth....

 

[333rocky333]

They had used Double pole switches and were switching the neutrals,causing the permenant feeds to backfeed the other lights somehow.

 

[Lectrician]

They had used Double pole switches and were switching the neutrals,causing the permenant feeds to backfeed the other lights somehow.

This was a fault that appeared in the last few days.....

 

[RF Lighting]

And I've already got it right!

Which emoticon should I use for 'smug'?

 

[333rocky333]

sorry , werent paying attention.
I also had one full of water yesterday, drove off got a new one , returned and circuit had tripped again while i was gone, looked round and found a second one hidden also full of water.