Lighting Circuit and Switch Wiring

[JohnW2]

Yes I thought that but I wasn't too sure. I will do some testing and find out what's where and then wire it up. Hopefully I can make it alright either that find a qualified electrician to sort it out.

As I and others have said, my greatest concern relates to what other dangerous things may be going on in your installation and, with the best will in the world, I don't think you have the knowledge to be able to ascertain that - and your attempts to correct things could make things more dangerous, rather than less.

We know that whoever wired the switch we have seen made at least one dangerous error - either switching the neutral instead of line/live or using blue as line/live and brown as neutral, either of which is dangerous. The same person who made one of those very basic mistakes may well have done other dangerous things elsewhere in your installation, which may well not be apparent to, or detectable by, you. I therefore can but repeat my advice that you really ought to get an electrician to check out everything, before you attempt to correct anything.

Kind Regards, John

 

[Taylortwocities]

I was wondering what sort of "testing" you were planning to do? And with what.

 

[morpheus83uk]

Testing each core individually with a multimeter to see what is what so what's live neutral and earth and Mark them up and do the same at the light itself and if there is a ceiling rose in place see what them cores are doing...

 

[ban-all-sheds]

I think you're probably being a bit unfair - the OP was effectively directed to the "Wiring Diagrams for Lighting Circuits" sticky, not the wiki.

[is it not about time we got rid of that sticky?]

I've asked admin more than once.

 

[JohnW2]

I think you're probably being a bit unfair - the OP was effectively directed to the "Wiring Diagrams for Lighting Circuits" sticky, not the wiki.
[is it not about time we got rid of that sticky?]

I've asked admin more than once.

As you presumably know, the most recent post in that sticky is one from Admin dated 26 July 2012:

Please add new infomation to the Wiki. This will be moved into the Wiki in due course:

"Due course" clearly comes slowly. However, I would have thought that we would want the sticky, with all its contents, simply removed, rather than 'moved to the Wiki" (where it would probably merely cause confusion), wouldn't we?

Kind Regards, John

 

[Taylortwocities]

I would have thought that we would want the sticky, with all its contents, simply removed, rather than 'moved to the Wiki" (where it would probably merely cause confusion), wouldn't we?

Agreed

"Due course" clearly comes slowly.

A bit like progress with Tapatalk for this forum

 

[ban-all-sheds]

I imagine William has a day job.

 

[endecotp]

Unless I'm missing something, the "sticky" contains circuits for 2-way switching and shows brown/blue wires; the Wiki has neither.

 

[JohnW2]

Unless I'm missing something, the "sticky" contains circuits for 2-way switching and shows brown/blue wires; the Wiki has neither.

It sounds as if you're missing a lot. If you look in the "Two-way lighting" section of the wiki, you'll find a lot of material, and plenty of brown/blue wires. Similarly if you look in the "Two way and intermediate lighting" section. Are you having difficulty navigating around the wiki?

Kind Regards, John

 

[endecotp]

Err... yeah, sorry.

I followed a link to this page:
//www.diynot.com/wiki/Electrics:Lighting-Circuit-layouts
which doesn't have any links to neighbouring pages; you have to follow "Wiki Home", then "Electrics (UK)", then "Lighting and Lamps". Which I should have been able to do, but somehow didn't.

 

[ban-all-sheds]

If you look in the "Two-way lighting" section of the wiki, you'll find a lot of material, and plenty of brown/blue wires. Similarly if you look in the "Two way and intermediate lighting" section.

A lot of the lighting drawings now default to harmonised colours, with options to show non-harmonised.

Not that it should matter - people should not be doing electrical installation work on the basis of just following a colour trail - they should actually understand what's going on, and if they had and were allowed to use cable with orange, purple, and sky blue pink cores, be just as able to install 2-way switching as if they had the regular stuff.

 

[JohnW2]

A lot of the lighting drawings now default to harmonised colours, with options to show non-harmonised.

Indeed - and, a decade after we 'harmonised' that would seem to make sense.

endecotp's comment was, of course that (perhaps because of its age) the section of the wiki he found contained only non-harmonised colours, which probably isn't ideal in 2014.

Kind Regards, John

 

[ban-all-sheds]

However endecotp raises a valid concern.

Whilst it isn't rocket science to go back up the tree and follow another path, it's not obvious that there is, or what is, the structure of the Wiki when you go directly to a particular page.

There is space in the left pane to have something like this displayed:

I'll ask if it can be done.

If not then it might be a useful move to add a list of related pages at the end of (particularly?) the lighting ones.

 

[JohnW2]

However endecotp raises a valid concern. Whilst it isn't rocket science to go back up the tree and follow another path, it's not obvious that there is, or what is, the structure of the Wiki when you go directly to a particular page. ... There is space in the left pane to have something like this displayed: ... I'll ask if it can be done

Yes, that would certainly help.

However, even if one views the tree, endecotp's experience makes me think that it might also be beneficial to find a more appropriate title for the "Lighting Circuits Layout" page - since I couldn't really blame anyone for thinking that subjects like 2-way switching might be covered there.

Kind Regards, John

 

[morpheus83uk]

Just to update you all I have tested everything and the live wires were the brown wires. What happened was whoever put it in just wired it up incorrectly which caused the dim LED's as there was constant current running through them. I have also put up a couple of lights in the garage and sorted out the switching in the living room and all in all a good day.