Evening everyone, hope yo are all okay. After a few googles I'm hoping a guru on here will easily spot what I'm doing wrong with the light switch I've just changed. I've done plenty of electrics in the past with no problem, but getting a bit rusty now clearly.
A lamp blew and zapped the dimmer, as it would not dimm or turn off. It's a touch switch from China. It's got bluetooth and it interferes with another dimmer of the same type on the same circuit (not same lights, but same ground floor lighting circuit) so when it blew I switched it for a standard single. There's no other switch to operate the kitchen lights, its a single switch. So I have assumed the black is the N on the original circuit, and the red is the L.
The wires from the wall are 2 red (old live) and 2 black (old neutral). The old switch was a double gang with the red wired into the L1 and L2 and the blacks wired into the N1 and N2. All worked fine for a couple of years (apart from if you used the other dimmer at the same time). This is a spur from the kitchen light circuit, so there's no other switch on it.
The switch I have is a single gang so I connected both blacks into the "N common" terminal and a red into each L1 and L2. This was clearly wrong as the MCB won't close. I opened out the wires and put the multimeter on them, and I get a clean 240V on one of the red and 0-6V on the other three, which I guess is just induction. When I test the other red and the two blacks I get 215V, and the same between the two blacks, that's wierd.
Do I just get another double-gang switch and replace as the last one, or is there another problem. The lights this switch feeds are 12V under-counter through a mini-transformer, so I wondered if that had maybe shorted, so I put the meter on it and got 12 Ohm across the terminals - not sure if that's good or not. That would be 20A at 240V but it's solid state converter, so not sure if the same simple calculation applies.
Slightly worried I have an emerging electrical problem, but also aware I've just forgotten how the four wires join the lighting circuit.
Any comments welcome... thanks.
A lamp blew and zapped the dimmer, as it would not dimm or turn off. It's a touch switch from China. It's got bluetooth and it interferes with another dimmer of the same type on the same circuit (not same lights, but same ground floor lighting circuit) so when it blew I switched it for a standard single. There's no other switch to operate the kitchen lights, its a single switch. So I have assumed the black is the N on the original circuit, and the red is the L.
The wires from the wall are 2 red (old live) and 2 black (old neutral). The old switch was a double gang with the red wired into the L1 and L2 and the blacks wired into the N1 and N2. All worked fine for a couple of years (apart from if you used the other dimmer at the same time). This is a spur from the kitchen light circuit, so there's no other switch on it.
The switch I have is a single gang so I connected both blacks into the "N common" terminal and a red into each L1 and L2. This was clearly wrong as the MCB won't close. I opened out the wires and put the multimeter on them, and I get a clean 240V on one of the red and 0-6V on the other three, which I guess is just induction. When I test the other red and the two blacks I get 215V, and the same between the two blacks, that's wierd.
Do I just get another double-gang switch and replace as the last one, or is there another problem. The lights this switch feeds are 12V under-counter through a mini-transformer, so I wondered if that had maybe shorted, so I put the meter on it and got 12 Ohm across the terminals - not sure if that's good or not. That would be 20A at 240V but it's solid state converter, so not sure if the same simple calculation applies.
Slightly worried I have an emerging electrical problem, but also aware I've just forgotten how the four wires join the lighting circuit.
Any comments welcome... thanks.
