Pendant light fault

[g25eorge]

hi there
im moving house so i had to change the fittings that i had put up. on testing the new pendant lights ( 2 lights for the one switch ) one light stays on constant, even when turned off and the other doesnt come on at all.
from the consumer unit the wiring runs to the hall, kitchen and then into the living room where i have these two lights to one switch.
ive wired them up 3 red to the centre , 2 black to neutral and the neutral from the switch to the live.

any help would be greatly appreciated.

thanks in advance

 

[PrenticeBoyofDerry]

The neutral from the switch is not a neutral.
Likelihood is you have mixed the black core colours up, was one marked up with red sleeve or tape?
Do you have multi meter to test continuity and live?
You could just try swapping the blacks around.

 

[EFLImpudence]

You could just try swapping the blacks around.

It may go BANG if you just do that.

 

[EFLImpudence]

Does the light which is constantly on have just a single cable (L N E )?

 

[g25eorge]

haha thats exactly what happened there i had to change the fuse on the cu.
the light that stays constantly on has 3 seperate cable coming through, the kitchen the 2nd living room light and the switch cable.
the 3 reds are to live, the two light neutrals are to neutral and the switch neutral wire is to live.
this then goes to the 2nd living room light which is the end of the circuit.

 

[EFLImpudence]

You need to start again.

Find which cable is which. Supply (from kitchen), Switch and Second Light.

Leave Second Light to one side for the moment.
Look here and understand
http://www.flameport.com/electric/lighting_circuits/lighting_ceiling_rose.cs4
Wire Supply and Switch as in the diagram. (thanks to flameport)

When you have done that connect Second Light wires to the same connectors as the First Light, i.e. the actual lamp. So you will not have three wires in the loop (centre) connector.

 

[PrenticeBoyofDerry]

I think I have given some misleading information;
I didn't mean you should swap them about and power up, that's why the mention of multimeter.
Test for correct operation.
You need a multimeter, if the cables are not correctly identified.
You have to determine which cables are your switch cables and which are the neutrals.
One of the pairs of red and blacks, will feed the live via the red core cable in the loop to your switch, then the black core of this pair will return from the switch to the live side of the pendant.
You need to identify this pair of cables.
Note for the future: note down and mark up before disconnecting cables!