Lighting Wiring Please Help!!

[liam2282]

I suppose ideally I would like both switches to operate all three lights i.e. as a hallway or landing would work.

With the 1st switch controlling the dimmer function. (not sure if thats how it works - but assume you cant have two dimmers controlling same lights?)

Thanks again.

 

[NoPoke]

so the dimmer is a push-on push-off type with an independently settable dim level?


All three lights in parallel

Other switch acting independantly and toggling the state of the three lights?

 

[liam2282]

yes that would be ideal, both switches are dimmer push on off - so assume only one can control dim level in this setup?

 

[Spark123]

You can't use 2 normal dimmers in a 2 way setup you can only have one dimmer and a normal switch. You also do not have enough wires to do a normal 2 way.
Not entirely sure how 2 dimmers would act connected in parallel, you can connect both switches in parallel but that will mean the lights will only ever be off when both switches are in a certain position.

 

[ban-all-sheds]

Yup - if you have 2-way switching only one can be a dimmer, unless you use master-slave dimmers (e.g. Varlight).

And whatever you do you would need to change the cabling - there is a 3C+E cable there which looks as though it basically goes between the switches, but to use it for 2-way you'd need to find another way to supply the neutral to the lights. Or if you used the red & yellow cores for the "conduit" method you'd need to find a way to take the switched live from Switch 2 to all the lights...

 

[ban-all-sheds]

Yup - if you have 2-way switching only one can be a dimmer, unless you use master-slave dimmers (e.g. Varlight).

And whatever you do you would need to change the cabling - there is a 3C+E cable there which looks as though it basically goes between the switches, but to use it for 2-way you'd need to find another way to supply the neutral to the lights. Or if you used the red & yellow cores for the "conduit" method you'd need to find a way to take the switched live from Switch 2 to all the lights...

Or stick with the first solution with one switch working one light and the other one the other two lights.

Heaven knows what they guy who installed it was thinking...

 

[Spark123]

He probably had a roll of 3c+e cable and instead of buying a single piece of 2c+e, just used that.

 

[NoPoke]

You do have enough conductors to have two independent dimmable circuits with the three lamps split between the two dimmers. You can have the middle lamp connected to either dimmer but the two end lamps need to stay with their closest dimmers.