kitchen under cupboard lighting problem

[ravey1]

Hi guys. I normally undertake all my own electrical work and then get it inspected by my brother in law. At the moment he's away on holiday and I have a question about some slimline undercupboard lights i have just fitted in my kitchen.

How do I connect them to the wall switch. I changed the switch to a 2 gang 2 way which i had laying around.1 switch for the main light which works fine and 1 switch for the new lights. I attempted to connect the wires up to the switch before i fitted the lights but was unable to get them working.I linked the 2 com connections with a piece of red wire to get a feed to the other side of the switch but didn't know where to stick the other 2 wires from the new lights.The new lighting cable has just brown and blue so I have temporarily put a plug on the end to use them for now.

Any help for my 1st post will be greatly appreciated.

 

[Job_n_knock]

Hi Ravey,
You are trying to connect to a switch where there isnt a neutral...you need to pick up a neutral for the return. If you look at the reference notes at the top of this board... //www.diynot.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=7553

If you look at the drawing you will see the switch is on the "live" side, as you do all your own electrics you would know that of course. Unless you can get a cable up to the ceiling to pick a neutral up, you might have to consider a switched spur with a 3A fuse ( dont forget to change the fuse from 13A to 3A)

 

[JohnD]

Yes, if you have sockets between the top of the worksurface, and the bottom of the wall cabinets (as is very usual) then a 3A fused FCU would be a convenient way to do it, and will not look out of place. It will of course not be controlled by the light switch on the wall, though.

 

[ravey1]

Thanks for the help guys. Just 1 more thing though. Can I connect 3 mains halogen spotlights to the same circuit. Because i have a flyover/bridging section in the kitchen which bridges the wall units from one side of the kitchen to the wall units on the other side. I want to install 3 spots in this as its above the sink and could do with some extra light. The cable for the under cupboard lights runs over the top of this bridging piece. Can i connect the spots to the under cupboard cable bearing in mind the existing cable only has live and neutral and no earth???

 

[JohnD]

If you are using an FCU then there must be an earth, because you are coming off the socket ring.

Take this to your lamp fittings with the supply cable.

 

[ravey1]

Thanks for the help John. Looks like it would be easier to try and get an FCU in then somewhere. I had 1 in the correct place but I decided to use this for the fridge. Shame because ive just finished tiling.