Lighting Help Needed please

[UpToNoGood]

First off, apologies to the old-hatters here as i know this kind of repeated theme must do your heads in!

I've looked at the sticky but to no avail.

Having just moved in to our new house, i decided (was told) to fit new lounge lights.

There are 2 in the lounge. Having fitted the first - a simple wire swap - i moved to the second. The second rose has 4 wire bundles and unfortunately, the red tape fell off the switch wire as i took it down

The configuration in the lounge is 2 roses, 1 simple on/off switch, 1 dimmer. Also, it would appear on the same circuit, a conservatory light and on/off switch.

Having wired it back together with what i thought was the right switched-black, the on/off switch now does nothing, the dimmer simply brightens one light and dims the other whilst the conservatory light is very dim.

Can anyone help me to find the switch-ed black to enable the switchery to work correctly please...

Thanks in advance,

Chris.

 

[riveralt]

Your going to need a multi-meter - do you have one?

It would also help if you could take photographs of the inside of the switches and ceiling roses and identify which you think controls which lights.

 

[UpToNoGood]

Multi-meter - not here at the moment...might have to get one tomorrow.

I can provide photos if needed, at the troublesome ceiling rose, there are 4 sheathes, each with an earth, red & black.

 

[riveralt]

Photographs yes - but you will have to explain in more detail how the original set up worked.

So did the single gang switch operate both lounge lights or just one?
Which lights did the dimmer operate.

Did the Conservatory have its own switch?

 

[UpToNoGood]

Lounge lights: Lounge Gang switch operated both lights. Dimmer operated both lights too.

Conservatory has separate gang switch and is otherwise separate (but now dim!)

This is the troublesome rose...sorry about the ****e pic - i've kept the wires in the old junction block as the new rose has only 3 connections.

L to R: Brown(to rose)-Black, Redx4, Blackx3, Blue (to rose). Earth currently goes straight through to rose.

 

[riveralt]

Eyes well and truly strained.

Looks okay in terms of the four cables in (one from switch - two for loop - one to conservatory) not sure where the cable to the other light is - though it could be end of the radial circuit.

How many cables are in the light you have already fixed! and are you sure you have connected this one properly? Under normal circumstance there should only be one set.

It is difficult to be sure but have you connected the switch live (bit of celotape around it???) to the blue neutral on the terminal block instead of the brown live and vice versa.

If this is not the case then you will need to use the multi-meter to establish where each of the cables go.

Incidentally, I'd replace the ceiling rose with a terminal block and place that in a chocbox.

 

[UpToNoGood]

Ok. The 'good' rose has one set of wire - ceiling red to brown, black to blue.

The 'bad' rose had the black blue wires wrong in the rose junction (good spot if you could see that from my pic!) so changed those and now fuse won't reset.

Guess that means the switch live is currently routing into the blacks somewhere?

Is it feasible to just rotate the blacks through the switch-live position until i find the right one? Unless there's some other fault?

Thanks again,

Chris.

 

[riveralt]

Ok. The 'good' rose has one set of wire - ceiling red to brown, black to blue.

Okay so this must be linked to the bad rose switch live so that in normal circumstances it switches on at the same time as the bad rose. Therefore one of those four wires is your link to the good rose - that needs identifying. One is your switch wire - which leaves the other two as the end of the loop and the conservatory link (if you are sure this is where it is linked from).

The 'bad' rose had the black blue wires wrong in the rose junction (good spot if you could see that from my pic!) so changed those and now fuse won't reset.

Guess that means the switch live is currently routing into the blacks somewhere?

Just remember that your switch live not only needs to power the live side of the light at the bad rose but also needs to join the red wire to the light at the good rose. --- I cannot see that type of connection in the picture you have shown.

Is it feasible to just rotate the blacks through the switch-live position until i find the right one? Unless there's some other fault?

Of course I will say that this is not the way I would do it I would use a multimeter.

When you do get access to a multi meter you will need to draw out how you expect the circuit to work. This will mean looking at the switches and trying to make sense of how they are wired - look at wiki for two way switches - from this you will need to identify the switch live wire - normally black but sometimes can be red. Then at the bad rose you need to identify the switch wire and place it and the good rose red wire together in the terminal that has the brown wire coming out of it.

Good Luck

 

[UpToNoGood]

Thanks for all that - that makes sense now with regards to the other rose.

Just to confirm, if we look back at that pic of the wiring junction, my understanding now is that it should be:

L to R: Brown(to rose)+Switch Black+RED(to other rose), Redx3, Blackx3+ Blue (to rose). Earth goes straight through to rose.

Thanks a lot for that.

Chris

 

[riveralt]

Thanks for all that - that makes sense now with regards to the other rose.

Just to confirm, if we look back at that pic of the wiring junction, my understanding now is that it should be:

L to R: Brown(to rose)+Switch Black+RED(to other rose), Redx3, Blackx3+ Blue (to rose). Earth goes straight through to rose.

Thanks a lot for that.

Chris

Make sure the circuit is dead before you do this.
To keep this simple I would get rid of the bad rose and replace it with a four way terminal block. I'm not sure how much space there is in the ceiling lamp but you could short out some of the circuits if part of the uncovered ceiling rose touches the lamp bracket etc. You could just use the terminal block in the lamp together with a single terminal block for the live loop but you will have to judge that for yourself.

The four way terminal block has two sides, lets call them A and B. Side A will take all the conductors from the circuit and side B will link to the lamp terminal.
On side A - first terminal put the live loop, live to the switch and live to the conservatory switch into the terminal block. You should be left with the red conductor which goes to the good ceiling rose.
On side A - second terminal put all the earths.
On side A - third terminal put the neutral loop, neutral to conservatory and neutral to the good ceiling rose into the terminal block. You should be left with the black switch live from the switch.
on Side A - fourth terminal put the black switch live and the red conductor to the good ceiling rose into the terminal block.
I will assume the light is not double insulated and therefore needs an earth connection. If that is the case then on Side B connect a piece of earth wire with proper sleeving between the second terminal and the earth marked terminal at the light.
On side B connect a piece of neutral cable (black/blue) between the third terminal and the neutral at the light which is shows a blue conductor.
On side B connect a piece of live cable (red/brown) between the fourth terminal and the live at the light which is shown as a brown conductor.

I would finish off by putting the four block terminal in a chocbox.

 

[UpToNoGood]

All works fine now...many thanks for your help!

The dimmer switch has stopped dimming though and just works as an on/off switch. I'm guessing that's the rheostat gone? They're normal bulbs so should dim fine.

Thanks again.

Chris.

 

[Adam_151]

Theres no reostat in a standard dimmer switch, if there was it would be a bit bigger and heavier...

You have blown the triac used to control how much of the sinewave is allowed to flow through the lamp so its permantly conducting.

Time for a new dimmer