Oh lordy !!!

[Woozie]

Ok peeps....here goes...

Trying to replace a light switch in a bedroom (plastic to metal)...one way.

The old switch had three cables going into it....

Assumptions:

One will be the main live cable from the Consumer unit to the switch...

One is the cable connecting the switch to the light...

And we have a cupboard in that room with a light, (and as that no longer works ),
the final cable should be for that one....

Anyway...to cut a long story short, I forgot to make a note of which wires went
where, and the new switch has a Com, L1 and L2 ports whereas the old one
had a Com and L1 only.

I have split the cables and have found the pure live one using a meter, so assuming
that comes from the Consumer unit....

My rather long winded question therefore is...where do the cables go...

All three have red, black and earth cable...

What I have done to date is twist the earth cables together, sleeved them and connected
them to the earthing terminal.

My other assumption is that the live cable from the consumer unit goes into the
Com port....but what the h*ll do I do with the other two red and three black ones ?!?!?!?!

Confused and feeling rather foolish of Aberdeen

 

[mo2]

Ok peeps....here goes...

Trying to replace a light switch in a bedroom (plastic to metal)...one way.

The old switch had three cables going into it....

Assumptions:

One will be the main live cable from the Consumer unit to the switch...

One is the cable connecting the switch to the light...

And we have a cupboard in that room with a light, (and as that no longer works ),
the final cable should be for that one....

Anyway...to cut a long story short, I forgot to make a note of which wires went
where, and the new switch has a Com, L1 and L2 ports whereas the old one
had a Com and L1 only.

I have split the cables and have found the pure live one using a meter, so assuming
that comes from the Consumer unit....

My rather long winded question therefore is...where do the cables go...

All three have red, black and earth cable...

What I have done to date is twist the earth cables together, sleeved them and connected
them to the earthing terminal.

My other assumption is that the live cable from the consumer unit goes into the
Com port....but what the h*ll do I do with the other two red and three black ones ?!?!?!?!

Confused and feeling rather foolish of Aberdeen

It seems, that your light has been looped in at the switch.The black ones, go together in a piece of connector strip. The earths should not be twisted together, but still put in the earth terminal.

The reds, are the problem because one will be the supply cable to another light, are you sure it is just the cupboard light not working?

If there is another light not working, then what you could do, is connect one red wire to L1 and see if the cupboard light and the other light works properly. If the other light only works when the cupboard light is on, then attatch this wire to com and the other red wire to L1.

Hope I understood correctly and I hope that made sense

 

[davelx]

since you know which is the live feed from using your meter, you can check that none of the other cables are is live by measuring between the N from the feed cable and each other cable.

Having done that, ensure there is a known good, normal bulb in the bedroom light, and no bulb in the cupboard. Set your meter to a resistance range and measure between L & N for each of the two remaining cables (ie NOT the live feed cable!!!). The one that gives a reading of around 60 ohms or so is the cable to the lamp. Confirm this by removing the bulb and measuring again - you should get no reading.