Dimmer switch - 2 gang 1 way

[milward66]

Hi
I am changing a 2 switch light fitting to a double dimmer switch (one way) and cannot get the lights to work properly. I have 4 red wires to connect (not sure which one is perm. live) and at the back of each dimmer are a common, L1 and L2. There is also a short red to connect the 2 switches but not sure where this goes.
Hope you can help!
Thanks.

 

[Lectrician]

Did you not write down or take a photo of the switch connections before removing?

You will likely have 1 red which is the live looping in, 1 red which is a live looping out to the next light switch for another room, amd then the other 2 lives corresponding to the two light fittings.

You need to put the live loop-in into one COM, the live loop-out into the other COM, link both COMS with the small bit of red.

The other two reds go into the L1's. You may want to swap these afterwrds if the switches are the wrong way around.

so, you need to identify which cable is which. You need a multimeter.

To figure out which light is which, you could use a multimeter to look for lowish ohms (depending on what light bulbs you have) between live and neutral. Remove the light bulbs in the fitting and the reading will vanish.

To figure out which the feed is, you need to look for volts when the circuit is on.

If you find the above three, the fourth is then obvious.

You need to mke sure you isolate power for the above tests, except for the one where you need to locate the live.

A lesson to you - TAKE A PHOTO, LABEL THE CABLES AS YOU REMOVE, ETC ETC!

 

[Lectrician]

Where in devon are you?

If ya stuck, and close to me, I could sort it out monday.

 

[milward66]

Did you not write down or take a photo of the switch connections before removing?

You will likely have 1 red which is the live looping in, 1 red which is a live looping out to the next light switch for another room, amd then the other 2 lives corresponding to the two light fittings.

You need to put the live loop-in into one COM, the live loop-out into the other COM, link both COMS with the small bit of red.

The other two reds go into the L1's. You may want to swap these afterwrds if the switches are the wrong way around.

so, you need to identify which cable is which. You need a multimeter.

To figure out which light is which, you could use a multimeter to look for lowish ohms (depending on what light bulbs you have) between live and neutral. Remove the light bulbs in the fitting and the reading will vanish.

To figure out which the feed is, you need to look for volts when the circuit is on.

If you find the above three, the fourth is then obvious.

You need to mke sure you isolate power for the above tests, except for the one where you need to locate the live.

A lesson to you - TAKE A PHOTO, LABEL THE CABLES AS YOU REMOVE, ETC ETC!

Hi, thanks for that. All sorted and a lesson learnt! Very grateful.