Stumped with PIR

[benunited]

Hi folks - any advice much appreciated!

Trying to get to grips with electrics put in before I moved into my house!

I have a single PIR on front of my garage, connected to two lights, working off a switch inside the garage, which has its own fuse box.

Tried to replace them all as they weren't working and in poor condition.

First time they didn't come on, so I wanted to rule out any issues. So I connected all the lives, neutrals and earths as though it was a standard light on a switch and everything works as you'd hope - so no problem with the lights, bulbs, fuses or cabling etc.

I'd have expected the live feed to go the PIR and then connections on to the lights. But that's not the way it was set up. Instead the live feed, connector to the PIR and the two connectors to the lights all connect together in a junction box.

I've replicated the cabling as follows:

First connector: Feed live and PIR live
Second connector: PIR neutral and neutrals from both lights
Third connector: Feed neutral and lives from both lights
Fourth connector: Earths

Any advice if this is right?

Also, the live feed is three core and earth, so with a switch live. I'm not sure what the purpose of this is as it was (and still is) isolated, i.e. not connected to the other cables.

Not sure if this is an issue? I don't see why I'd need a switch live as I only want the PIR to work if there's movement in front of the garage - plus the lights have a manual override if need be.

Maybe the PIR is faulty? For what it's worth, the PIR instructions assume the live feed will go to the PIR, as follows:

The L/N/E from the feed going to the PIR, connecting to the L/N/E in the PIR. The PIR then has a L1 and the instructions are to connect the light lives to this L1 and then to the N/E in the PIR.

Again, any advice much appreciated!

Ben

 

[deadshort]

Check your wiring ! 3 connector on the pir?does not make sense.

Pir should have 4 terminals -

L mains
N all neutrals
SL L feed lights
E all earths


Regards,

DS

 

[benunited]

Yeah, the 4th connector on the PIR is SL not L1

But the way the cabling is set up the SL isn't/can't be used as just a L/N/E cable is coming from the PIR and meeting the live feed and light cabling in the junction box

I'm thinking I need to feed the live feed and the light cabling to the PIR rather than the current set-up, unless there's a way of making this junction box cabling work?

Thanks!

 

[boringoldcodger]

WARNING. I'm not a sparky so if anyone says I'm talking rubbish then I probably am.

benunited said

I've replicated the cabling

Assuming this means that the original colour coding has been followed then I reckon there's been abuse of the coding (by the previous owner). For the setup to work, my guess is that it was done as:

1st connector: Feed Live + PIR Live
2nd connector: Switched Live from PIR + Lives to lights
3rd connector: Feed neutral + neutrals from lights
4th connector: Feed earth + earths from lights + neutral from PIR (abuse of earth wire)

I'm NOT suggesting that it should be wired like this, just that it would probably work if wired like that.

I feel it needs a three core + earth cable between the PIR and the junction box as that would allow PIR neutral into connector 3 and PIR earth into connector 4, but (obviously) don't know how easy that is to do.