Cable colours on a light switch

[Lupa Monkey]

Can someone please help before I kill us all!!!

I'm trying to replace a double light switch with a metal one. There are two cables each one with an earth running into the socket but there is no earth coming out to attach to the socket facing. Is it as simple as buying some earth cable and attaching a bit?

Secondly what the heck is going on here ? One of the cables has two red wires as well as the earth and the other has a red a blue and a yello. Can someone explain that to me....please!!! It's nothing like the one I just did which has straight forward red and black ones.

 

[breezer]

1) yes

2) look in for refernce to see how it works

3) note my signature (2nd bit)

 

[plugwash]

it sounds like one switch is one way done with twin red rather than the normal red and black and the other is the second switch of a two way system.

in any case changing a switch should just be a matter of moving connections over you shouldn't have to know exactly how things are wired in the rest of the system.

 

[ban-all-sheds]

Yup.

Make a careful note about what goes where. Be aware that some switches have their terminals labelled COM or C, L1 & L2, and some L1, L2 & L3.

These correspond like this:

COM <-> L1
L1 <-> L2
L2 <->L3

Also note that on 2 gang switches the terminals are often grouped in triangles, i.e. the L1, L2 L3 in a row do not go together:

[code:1] L1 | L3 L2
|
|
L3 L2 | L1[/code:1]

Re the earth cable, you can't buy anything small enough - take some out of an old bit of flex.

And do, please, read the For Reference section to understand how 2-way switching works....

 

[Lupa Monkey]

I actually took a digital pic of how it was wired before, but the old fitting is nothing like the new one! And the new one is nothing like the diagrams on the reference page.

I'll have another look at it tomorrow with the advice you guys have given. Thanks for that...Happy New Year