Light wired wrong - what actually happened

[ianb1965]

I replaced a transformer on a hall light. There's another identical light in a different part of the hall.

Stupidly I didn't make a note of which light wires connected to which circuit wires. Anyway after wiring up and switching on both lights came on but all bulbs in both lights were at about half power. All sorted now and working properly. I'm presuming I mixed live and neutral but what, from a technical point of view, would cause both lights to run dim?

Thanks

Ian

 

[ban-all-sheds]

You had them in series.

 

[ianb1965]

Blimey that was a quick reply - thanks. So each light was only receiving half the volts? I'd have thought the transformer wouldn't have worked at all if that was the case.

 

[Spark123]

Depends on what is in the box that you call a transformer - some are switch mode PSUs.
A bog standard transformer will still function on half the volts, half the volts on the input will give half the volts on the output.
Switch mode ones are anyones guess!

 

[ianb1965]

Ok thanks. That makes sense actually as the instructions mention that it supports dimmer switches.

Ian

 

[Spark123]

Modern dimmer switches don't reduce the voltage, they clip the sine wave to reduce the power into the load.

 

[ban-all-sheds]

Reducing the voltage could produce the same effect at the output of the SMPSU