Friendly Electrician Needed (HEEEEEELLLLLP!)

[Rob M]

Not sure if this belongs in this section (or indeed any section here) but I'm sure that if I'm in the wrong place one of our lovely MODs will move it

I really need some advice from a friendly electrician if there are any here.

I am trying to help a mate who is having some problems with ceiling lights in his house. He is replacing two existing light fittings (which both worked) with two new light fittings. The first went without a hitch but unfortunately the labels that he had put on the wires of the second one fell off half way through and now we don't know which wires go in where.

I've had a little experience with lighting circuits and (as far as I can see) we have got both fittings wired correctly but for some reason only one of them is working.

We have swapped the fittings around (just in case one of them was dodgy) and they both work but only when wired into the one (working) location.

If I post a diagram of what we have (and what we know about the wirning) could somebody qualified take a look at it for me and make some suggestions about where we've gone wrong please?

I'm sure we've missed something obvious (and probably stupidly simple) but I'm totall stumped!

[paulyoung666]

wrong wire in wrong hole , bzzzzzzzzzzzzzt , i fear this could be a difficult one to sort without being there , have you blown any fuses yet ???????? , or do you have a board with individual trips that can be reset ???????? , please be careful

[bigitup_j]

hi there.
would you mind if i take a look at the diagrams?
i'll try and see what's up.

thanks
(i'm an electricians apprentice - and i know stuff about lighting (i've got diagrams to compare))

[Rob M]

Ok Guys, thanks.

I'll put a couple of diagrams together of what we have (and know) so far and then I'll post them here.

We haven't blown any fuses yet and we're being careful (taking the fuse out while we work on the wires, that sort of things).

Give me a couple of minutes and I'll post the up.

[Rob M]

Ok, I'm working from memory a little bit here (I had to come home to get to my computer).

The only thing I didn't manage to ascertain when I was there was exactly which red wires went where (but I can go back and do that tomorrow if needs be).

Hopefully though this will help you to see which wires we have got and suggest how they SHOULD go together and then I can check that when I go round next.

As I say, the first light on the picture (light 2) works fine. It is Light 1 that isn't working at the moment.

Thanks again for your help guys.

Here's The Diagram

[Flubflow]

I will never understand why there have to be a gazillion wires coming out into the ceiling light fitting. Can't you sparkys leave all that crap in a little junction box out of sight and just have the required two wires protruding for the satisfactory function of the electric light bulb?
It really makes life difficult trying to fit this Jodrell Bank of wiring inside my new small fashionable light fittting.

[homealone]

Originally Posted by Raistlin

Ok, I'm working from memory a little bit here (I had to come home to get to my computer).

The only thing I didn't manage to ascertain when I was there was exactly which red wires went where (but I can go back and do that tomorrow if needs be).

Hopefully though this will help you to see which wires we have got and suggest how they SHOULD go together and then I can check that when I go round next.

As I say, the first light on the picture (light 2) works fine. It is Light 1 that isn't working at the moment.

Thanks again for your help guys.

Here's The Diagram

link doesn't work for me - I've tried an edit in this reply.

<edit> I get this now "You do not have permission to get the requested URL from this server."

Could get it earlier - now getting 'page cannot be displayed'

[yesman]

This might help..........

[bob_a_builder]

can't you sparkys leave all that crap in a little junction box out of sight and just have the required two wires protruding

Well said, I'll second that !

Lookl like we'll all need a friendly electrician soon LINK

[bigitup_j]

Originally Posted by bob_a_builder

Well said, I'll second that !

Lookl like we'll all need a friendly electrician soon LINK

excellent news! more business for me!


i'll have a look at the diagram, and see what's happening!

in any ceiling rose there will be three groups of terminals

one containing 3 wires (ill call A), the next containing 3 wires (ill call B) and the next containing 2 (ill call C)

A contains the neutral
B contains the live
C contains the switch live

A (the neutral) should have one wire to the light pendant which will be blue and the other two are from the ring main and will be black

B (the live) should contain 3 red wires, two will be to the ring main and therefore should be in the same sheath as one of the blacks in A. The third wire goes to the light switch as the live.

C (the switch live) should contain 2 wires, the black which is the switched live from the light switch (might have red tape on it) and the brown to the light pendant

[bigitup_j]

Originally Posted by Raistlin

Ok, I'm working from memory a little bit here (I had to come home to get to my computer).

The only thing I didn't manage to ascertain when I was there was exactly which red wires went where (but I can go back and do that tomorrow if needs be).

Hopefully though this will help you to see which wires we have got and suggest how they SHOULD go together and then I can check that when I go round next.

As I say, the first light on the picture (light 2) works fine. It is Light 1 that isn't working at the moment.

Thanks again for your help guys.

Here's The Diagram

i see you have 3 light holders there. i thought you had only two. it's a little confusing. and you seem to have 2 phase (live) wires coming in, and only one neutral.

i need to know how the wiring is connected in the switch (what's in the Common, L1, L2?)
and the lamp holders, the three connector blocks - on your diagram which one is which? i think i know, but i just want to make sure. i'd guess it is: (as shown on the diagram)
top left - Switch Line (has two screws)
bottom left - Neutral (has three screws)
right - Loop (3 screws, in the middle between the two connector blocks)

thanks

[Rob M]

Ok, let's see if I can clarify this a bit.

Here's the diagram (sorry about the size of the image if it slows down the downloading of the page):




The box at the top is the light switch box on the wall and is made up of two dimmer switches. S1 and S2.
S1 controls Light 1
S2 controls Light 2
There are tow cables coming into this box, each cable has two wires, 1 red and 1 black (wired as shown).

There are only two light fittings (Light 2 is the first one on the diagram and is the one that is working).
The blue and brown wires indicated on the diagram are built into the light fitting.

Light 2 has only 2 cables coming into it (comprising of 2 red wires and 2 black wires). 1 of the black wires is coming from Switch 2 (labelled B2). I think that the second black wire goes to Light 1.

Light 1 has three cables (comprising 3 black and 3 red wires). I am assuming that 1 red and 1 black must go to the next light in the circuit (probably the kitchen light). The black wire labelled B1 definately goes back to Switch 1.

I'm not sure how the common and L1 / L2 terminals on the dimmer are connected. From memory the wires are as in the diagram, I can check the labelling of the terminals tomorrow if you need me to.

If you still can't see the diagram then please PM me with your email address and I will email it to you if that's ok? It's about 312k in size, I can try to reduce it if you need me to but I'm worried about losing the detail. It's not a great picture to start with.

Thanks again for your help.

[Rob M]

I think you might be getting confused by the diagram that Yesman posted above. I think that was supposed to be a general representation of how lights should be arranged. It isn't a diagram of how these lights are wired.