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Dimmer Switch Help

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Hi guys, any help/advice you offer would be much appreciated.

I'm upgrading a couple of plug sockets in my flat from white plastic sockets to metal plate as follows:


Swapping the 3-gang 2-way switch on the left is fine, that's easy to change and I've had no problems.

The trouble I'm having is swapping the 2-gang 2-way switch for the LED dimmer. Although the switch and dimmer are both 2-way this is the only location where the lights can be turned on or off.

I have two track lights each with x5 6W GU10 LED spotlights so a max requirement of 30W per track. Each track is controlled on and off by each one of the gangs on the socket.

The LED dimmer switch is rated to a maximum of 100W (min 5 watts).

The back of the 2-gang 2-way switch with wires in situ looks like this:



The back of the dimmer switch looks like this:


I've wired up the dimmer as follows:




Everything works but my question is have I wired things up correctly?
The COM wires from the old switch are now fed into the L terminal of the new dimmer
The L1 wires from the old switch are now fed into the wavey terminal of the new dimmer

Also, I've noticed when I turn the lights off some of the LEDs look as though they're still on, very dim but still on. Is this normal?

Again, many thanks in advance, much appreciated.
 
That seems fine. The wavy line with the arrow through it is the output.

The "L" is input. The "Sw" is for two way use.

I'm sure they are fine, but please double-check the earth wires are all nicely gripped by the terminal screw on the switch.
 
The wiring looks fine, but as above make sure there is earth continuity throughout and connected to metallic plates.
There original switch was not a dimmer switch, are the GU10 lamps compatible for dimming?
 
Last edited:
That seems fine. The wavy line with the arrow through it is the output.

The "L" is input. The "Sw" is for two way use.

I'm sure they are fine, but please double-check the earth wires are all nicely gripped by the terminal screw on the switch.

Thanks for your post, it was quite awkward to fit all of the earth wires into the earth terminal but I'm happy that they're all securely held in there
 
The wiring looks fine, but as above make sure there is earth continuity throughout and connected to metallic plates.
There original switch was not a dimmer switch, are the GU10 lamps compatible for dimming?

Hey, thanks. Yes they are, I purchased the track and GU10 bulbs specifically as they were dimmable
 
Turning off as in pressing the switch, or just turning it to the minimum setting?

Yes, turning off as in pressing the switch off. When completely off, it's strange, some of the bulbs are on but just very, very dim.
 
That sometimes occurs with 2 way circuits but yours are not.
 
If the LED lamp(s) are glowing when the switch is off then stray capacitive coupling between Live and Switched Live is passing enough energy to make the lamp(s) glow.

This can be solved by fitting a snubber ( which is a capacitor and resistor in series ) across the lamp

A convenient source of the snubber is the contact supressor sold by Maplins

http://www.maplin.co.uk/p/contact-suppressor-rg22y

This has a 0.1uF capacitor which is a bit of an over kill but better too large than too small.

There are other suppliers.
 

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