shower woe

[bodgerbill]

recently changed cord to ceiling pullswitch.
supply L/N
load L/N
neon connected to load
when pull switch on neon glows
Turn shower on neon goes out and no indiator on shower
any ideas ....i need a wash[/img]

 

[mapj1]

If the light goes out 'on load' then there is a high impedance in the supply. Look for a join not properly made clean metal to clean metal. Or supply not reaching switch properly. - try putting a lamp holder (as a test only) in place of the switch, and seeing if you can light a 100W bulb when you put the fuse back in.. Just because a low current load (neon or meter) sees some volts, doesn't guarantee a reliable supply. Also check the fuse/breaker it could be open circuit, but with enough capacitive coupling round it to light a neon lamp if long lengths of energised cable run next to the dead one.

 

[Panjandrum]

When this happened to me the problem was a fault in the N side of the DP switch. Enough connection to light the neon only until load applied by shower and still live getting through to the shower. Odd that this has gone wrong if you only changed the string, but sounds like either loose connection or defective switch.

 

[fireman22]

pull cord is defective or has loose connection, buy a new one, about a tenner

 

[the trician]

Check that you haven't cross L & N over on the new switch -

Red (brown?) goes to L
Black (blue?) goes to N

Red to shower (brown?) goes to L-LOAD
Black to shower (blue?) goes to N-LOAD.

Seen this happen before - neon goes weird if lines are crossed over.

TT

 

[ban-all-sheds]

Can you explain the theory behind that?

I can't quite get my head round how the neon knows what colour wires are where.....