Terminals on pull cord

[Giles]

Hi,

I am wiring in an extractor fan from a live feed to a wall light.

I have put a junction box into the live feed to provide power for my fan, then a fused switch to isolate it, then a pullcord, then the fan.

The pullcord has 5 terminals L1, L2, L3, L4 and earth. I know that it is just the live cable that is switched - the neutral stays connected, and the earth termintes at the pullcord. But the switch came witout instructions so which o4 the 4 L terminals do I use for the supply and the load?

Cheers

 

[ban-all-sheds]

Normally I'd say a switch with 4 terminals was a DP one, but with that L1-L4 designation it sounds like an intermediate but I didn't know you could get those.

You should check it with your multimeter to see what it does.....

 

[Giles]

errrr....don't have a multimeter!

 

[ban-all-sheds]

Shouldn't be doing electrics then.

 

[mapj1]

Or, pick L1 and say L2 as an intelligent 1st guess, if no good, move to L1 and L3, L1 and L4 until it does what you want. (only 6 combinations that make sense as worth trying..)

1 and 2, or 3 or 4
2 and 3 or 4
3 and 4
and then you have covered all the possibles..

If you are only switching live, the worst it will do is not switch off, or not switch on, if you can't find the right pair first go.

 

[Giles]

Thanks for that.

Got myself a multimeter.

Found out that L1 and L2 work together and L3 and L4 work together.

But for some reason the little LED is on all the time (if quite dim) although the switch works on and off? Not sure why this is. ?

 

[ban-all-sheds]

It's a DP switch - it is designed to switch live & neutral.

My guess is that the light is on all the time because you've got the supply going to the wrong side of the switch, and it is dim because there's no neutral, and it's just lighting up via leakage.

 

[Giles]

Ah okay.

So maybe I should be doing this:

Live Supply to L1, Live load to L2
Neutral supply to L3, Neutral load to L4?

 

[Giles]

Can anyone confirm the above please?

 

[ban-all-sheds]

If "Found out that L1 and L2 work together and L3 and L4 work together" means:

[code:1]

/
/
L1--/ o-----L2


/
/
L3--/ o-----L4

[/code:1]

then yes, that's how you connect it.