Help with 4 colour wiring

[sparkwright]

You've wired it up wrong.
There should be a switch cable to the light switch, and you've most likely connected the switched live of that to neutral.

 

[Sard]

Why have the cables with red and black suddenly become brown and blue?

I joined the ring main in another junction box, as I alluded to earlier in one of my posts. I have a cable from that junction box feeding the one pictured above and labelled it as such

 

[sparkwright]

Trace which cable goes to the LIGHT SWITCH, and tell us which one it is.

 

[Sard]

You've wired it up wrong.
There should be a switch cable to the light switch, and you've most likely connected the switched live of that to neutral.

Thank you, I appreciate your help. I will look at the switch in the morning to see what's going on and will revert back.

 

[SUNRAY]

Deleted after rereading OP

 

[Sard]

Morning all,

The light switch was standard 3 core, with neutral being switched live. When I opened up the fan Isolator I saw the attached, so I'm assuming the 4 core cable comes from here. I will also open the fan as I didn't have time this morning.

Thank you again for your help.

 

[EFLImpudence]

The light switch was standard 3 core, with neutral being switched live.

 

[endecotp]

The light switch was standard 3 core, with [the black wire] being switched live.

So where is the other end of that cable now?

I think I can identify it in the very first photo. Is it one of the cables in your new junction box, or not?

Note there is no guarantee that the wires in the fan isolator actually have the roles marked on the switch.

 

[SUNRAY]

Morning all,

The light switch was standard 3 core, with neutral being switched live. When I opened up the fan Isolator I saw the attached, so I'm assuming the 4 core cable comes from here. I will also open the fan as I didn't have time this morning.

Thank you again for your help.

Yes that is the fan isolator, I feel that needs no further investigation.
Your original picture of the ceiling rose, is that after removing some wiring, if so what?

The black in the switch cable is the switched live, calling it neutral may be adding confusion.

The first thing you need to do is confirm the cables are as I've named them here:

and add the switch cable as shown - but you will need to arange a way to get 5 earth wires into 4 terminations

Transposed from here if you can still identify them:

plus the mirror.

EDIT: I haven't been able to post for several hours, I see some points already covered.

 

[SUNRAY]

Morning all,

The light switch was standard 3 core, with neutral being switched live. When I opened up the fan Isolator I saw the attached, so I'm assuming the 4 core cable comes from here. I will also open the fan as I didn't have time this morning.

Thank you again for your help.

Yes that is the fan isolator, I feel that needs no further investigation.
Your original picture of the ceiling rose, is that after removing some wiring, if so what?

The black in the switch cable is the switched live, calling it neutral may be adding confusion.

The first thing you need to do is confirm the cables are as I've named them here:View attachment 399529and add the switch cable as shown - but you will need to arange a way to get 5 earth wires into 4 terminations

Transposed from here if you can still identifyt

EDIT: I have no idea how this part reply has been posted, other that the outage earlier.

 

[Sard]

Hi, apologies for the delay. Busy few days with work.

I've opened up the fan and found it has red, yellow and blue conductors.

Sunray, to your comment earlier. The ceiling rose photo was unchanged and before I started the work

 

[SUNRAY]

Hi,

I'm looking to replace the ceiling rose below with a new light and a little confused by the wiring.

So going right back to your original post, is this picture just as you found it before you did any work?

I have worked out conductors belong to the ring main and disconnected those from the ceiling rose and reconnected them and the other lights on this circuit all work fine.

More information please, may we assume there were 2 red wires and 2 black wires in the empty terminals arrowed which are now in a junction box?

The 4 colours on this other cable are Red, Yellow, Blue and unsleeved Earth. My new light fitting has L, N, E terminals. This circuit also has an extractor fan that comes on with the wall switch. I have bought a J804 Hager 4 way Junction Box to make this a bit easier, so I can run a conductor from the junction box to the new light, once I have the 4 cable figured out.

Thanks in advance!

View attachment 399416

In you new junction box you quote

Going clockwise
Top left Grey - spur from lighting ring main acting as supply

Top right white - Assumed to be switched cable, neutral, live and earth connected to corresponding blocks. Yellow assumed to be switched live, connected to loop terminal on JB

Which you now know is the fan cable

Bottom right grey - load going to new ceiling rose, with live wired into switched live terminal above
Bottom left grey - load going to illuminated mirror. Not switched.

What happened to the other cable between the ceiling rose and the switch (what type of switch is it - wall or ceiling?)? That is the black wire (in a cable with a red wire) that was in the terminal with the yellow wire. THIS COULD BE AN IMPORTANT FIRST QUESTION TO ANSWER.

You haven't answered why the red/black cables have turned into brown/blue. More details please


However you also say the yellow as a switched live, under what circumstances?

That's lots of questions and we need information to assist you but may not need all of it, please answer little definite information at a time . More pictures if there is anything left to picture may help.

 

[Sard]

So going right back to your original post, is this picture just as you found it before you did any work?

More information please, may we assume there were 2 red wires and 2 black wires in the empty terminals arrowed which are now in a junction box?View attachment 400062






In you new junction box you quote



Which you now know is the fan cable

What happened to the other cable between the ceiling rose and the switch (what type of switch is it - wall or ceiling?)? That is the black wire (in a cable with a red wire) that was in the terminal with the yellow wire. THIS COULD BE AN IMPORTANT FIRST QUESTION TO ANSWER.

You haven't answered why the red/black cables have turned into brown/blue. More details please


However you also say the yellow as a switched live, under what circumstances?

That's lots of questions and we need information to assist you but may not need all of it, please answer little definite information at a time . More pictures if there is anything left to picture may help.

The ceiling rose was completely untouched, those terminal blocks were completely vacant when I exposed it to take the photo.

I will put it all back together tomorrow morning as it was, so we can start again. No wires have changed colours, but I have added new cables as the new light fitting doesn't have a ceiling rose and I also want to fit an illuminated mirror, fed from the ring main. But I appreciate this isn't helping, so let's go back to the very beginning and build up slowly.

Thanks again. More updates to come.

 

[robinbanks]

I'm looking to replace the ceiling rose below with a new light

(This post assumes the pic is how you found things before making any changes)

If the new light's central rose would fit over the old clear plastic thing you have there the simplest thing to do is leave all the connections alone, undo the two white wires, put the new light in where they were and fit the new light rose over the old clear plastic junction holder

If it won't fit, the simplest thing to do is buy a box of 4 way wago/ideal connectors, take all the wires out of only one brass block at a time (do not take all wires out of all brass blocks; do one block at a time) and connect them into a wago/ideal, one wire per hole. Tuck the connectors inside the new light rose. I mention 4 way because you say you want to add something else, and so far you have 3 wires in each block. To add something else go one more way of connector than you have wires when buying a pack. eBay sellers sell eg a pack of 10 four way ideal connectors for less than a fiver

You mention adding a mirror; if you want the mirror to be powered all the time regardless if the bathroom light is on or off, connect it to the wago holding the red/brown wires and the black/blue wires
If you want the mirror to follow the light switching and the bathroom light switch turns the mirror off too, wire it into the same wagos as the light uses (black/blue and black/yellow)

The presence of the paint splotches on the black wire on the right of the picture will help identify what to put back where if you've already ripped this all apart. Thankfully it's only the two black wires that can potentially be the wrong way round so if you've wiped the paint off and can no longer tell, connect it all up and it has a 50/50 chance of working If it doesn't work correctly, swap the two black wires over

 

[Sard]

Ok, so I put it all back together as it was originally using wago connectors and whilst there isn't a light attached, I flicked the switch and the fan came on as expected.

Now my next question is, how do I add 2 extra cables to power my new ceiling light (switched) and illuminated mirror (unswitched). If you can advise me against my original photo, that would be perfect because I can then replicate that in my junction boxes.