Varilight - Master/Slave two way circuit wiring problem

[walney]

Hello all,

I'm hoping somebody knows a little more than me and my electrician do about the varilight touch/remote dimmer range.

I have a two gang socket in my lounge that controls the lounge light and the landing light - there are then two further one gang sockets individually in the lounge and the landing.

I wired a two gang master Varilight up in the lounge but cannot get it to work with either of the one gang slaves. In fact, the only way i've managed to get it to work is by leaving one of the existing old switches in place - but this switch can only be in one position. If you flick the switch it stops the Varilight master from working at all.

The wires in the socket boxes are red, red and black - my electrician has looked at it but can't fathom it out. I resorted to trying all wiring combinations in the switches, which took hours, but still no luck - any ideas or should I give up and go back to normal switches ??

 

[ibruceuk]

What were the wires in the switches originally connected to in the 'normal' switches?

i.e. COM, L1, L2 etc...

Are u sure you've got master and slaves?

 

[walney]

I definitely have masters and slaves - to be safe i actually have a two gang master and a two gang slave along with two one gang masters and two one gang slaves, in case it made a difference which switches should be slaves and which should be masters !!

In the original switch, there was a red and a black going to two unmarked connections and a red going into the common connection

Would it make any difference which one was slave (ie two gang master with one gang slave, or two gang slave with one gang master ??)

 

[ibruceuk]

Right then, for the Varilight dimmers you need to find which wires are which.

In theory the red and black that went into unmarked connections should be leading to the other switch. The one in common could either be live feed or the feed to the light. You could do with testing to find out which.

Now, from memory the Varilights require one wire connecting between the Slave connections on each switch (S) and one wire connecting between lives.

and then the switch with the feed wire (your master) feeds the actual light.

Hope this makes sense. Double check the wiring diagram to make sure my memory isn't failing. I am at work at the moment, so can't look at my set-up.

 

[walney]

Now i'm a little confused. It sounds like you're telling me that the Varilight set up means that only one of the two switches (the master) actually feeds the light - I would assume however that in the old setup, both switches would have had a feed to the light ? Or is this incorrect ?

You'll have to excuse me on this, I managed to get all the one way sockets wired up but am at a total loss with this two way circuit. I guess i need to understand how the wires work once they disappear behind the walls, but as I've seen from some previous DIY projects, these houses weren't exactly built to normal specifications !!

Many thanks for all your help so far, it is much appreciated

 

[walney]

Ok, I have found out which switch feeds the light - I have put my master switch here and connected the feed wire to the FEED terminal on the back of the varilight switch. I have connected the old Red L1 to LIVE and the old Black L2 to SLAVE

In the Slave switch however I cannot work out what to do. I originally connected the old L1 to LIVE and the old black L2 to SLAVE and the permenant live to FEED. This didn't work as no power was getting fed back to the master switch.

In fact, the only way I can get power going back to the master switch is to put both the permenant live cable and the old Red L1 cable in the LIVE terminal. This means I can operate the light from the Master controller - but not from the Slave controller

I'm now at a total loss - although at least i understand what the wiring does now !

Any ideas anybody ??

 

[ibruceuk]

So have you currently got

Feed on the master to the light

Live into Live on the slave which is connected to live at the master by the old L1 cable

Slave on Master to Slave on Slave?

I think this might work

Sorry, just checked the wiring diagrams, apparently you need three cables (i.e. normal 3C+E) between switched for it to work!, why they can't design it to work with two as the majority of old 2 way set-ups only have two between switches!

 

[walney]

Feed to light on Master Switch

Live on master switch connected to live on slave switch along with the permenant live wire

Slave on Master to Slave on Slave

Nothing in Feed on Slave switch

Still the light can be operated from the master but not from the slave !!