Hi,
I've currently got a regular dimmer switch that controls a pair of wall lights i.e. both go on and off via this one switch. I wanted to replace it with one of them funky new touch/remote controlled dimmers, and was sold the following by the chappie at John Lewis:
Varilight 1Gang 1Way 1x400W touch dimmer switch
Looked simple enough to install so I did, copying the wire positions from the old switch. When I switched the consumer unit's fuse back on, the mains tester was showing that the metal "touch" part was LIVE! As I'd bought a couple of these switches I tried another and the same result. Thanks to the mains tester I didn't touch the switch and am here to tell the tale.
Just to confirm - the Red wire went into the terminal marked with an arrow "Live", and the Black wire went into the terminal marked with the wavy arrow with the line through it. I connected the earth wire to the screw on the plate. There's no slave switch so didn't need to bother with the terminal marked "S".
So the question is - have I wired it up wrong? have I bought the wrong kind of switch? Or could they be from a dodgy batch?
Any help would be gratefully appreciated as I couldn't find the answer in the archives of this forum.
Thanks!
I've currently got a regular dimmer switch that controls a pair of wall lights i.e. both go on and off via this one switch. I wanted to replace it with one of them funky new touch/remote controlled dimmers, and was sold the following by the chappie at John Lewis:
Varilight 1Gang 1Way 1x400W touch dimmer switch
Looked simple enough to install so I did, copying the wire positions from the old switch. When I switched the consumer unit's fuse back on, the mains tester was showing that the metal "touch" part was LIVE! As I'd bought a couple of these switches I tried another and the same result. Thanks to the mains tester I didn't touch the switch and am here to tell the tale.
Just to confirm - the Red wire went into the terminal marked with an arrow "Live", and the Black wire went into the terminal marked with the wavy arrow with the line through it. I connected the earth wire to the screw on the plate. There's no slave switch so didn't need to bother with the terminal marked "S".
So the question is - have I wired it up wrong? have I bought the wrong kind of switch? Or could they be from a dodgy batch?
Any help would be gratefully appreciated as I couldn't find the answer in the archives of this forum.
Thanks!