Switch wiring in netherland

[jimlad]

Hi there,

I've just been to a neighbour's house.. his spotlights don't work, but then there's no light switch either so I didn't really get to test the spots..

Sorry for the blurry photo below.

The green wire is live, when i use a multi-meter i get no reading when connecting from green to any of the other wires, 2 black 1 blue.

the meter works when i tested a nearby plug socket which returned 230v reading.

The green wire is live because my screwdriver lit up when i touched it.

so my question is, am I getting no multi-meter reading because the other wires are not connected to anything?

To reconnect a light switch which of these wires should be used?

Cheers
Jim

 

[Himaginn]

I would have thought that the green wire should in no cases be live.
Have you tried if there's any voltage between the green wire and another earth, perhaps the earth of the socket?
If yes, then more intrusive exploration is required to find out why the green (which is invariably earth) is live.

If the green is live, and any of the others are also live, you will not detect which are live.
You need to use another reliable earth to test.
If the blue or black have no feed to them, the switch will never work.

 

[winston1]

Neon screwdrivers are not a reliable test for live. All your test shows is that green wire is not earthed. The live indication could be capacitive coupling from the green wire to a nearby live one.

Do you know what the pre harmonised colour codes were in NL? Some countries used red for earth so maybe green could be live or switched live. Maybe worth a Google.

 

[winston1]

OK, pre harmonisation in NL grey was used for earth. N and L could be any colour except grey or red.

So your green could indeed be live.

http://forums.mikeholt.com/showthread.php?t=134415