Lights

[junglistmatty]

In our house, we have 8 lights in the bathroom and one double switch by the door. One switch is for 4 lights in the ceiling and one switch is for 4 downlights above the mirror.

The light switch is a double switch like this:

I want to move the light switch, so I've noted the wiring and moved the switch then re-connected the cables in the same positions as they were before.

However, now when I turn on one switch, all 8 lights come on together but really dim, and the other switch does nothing.


So I have tested the cables and this is the result:

Cable 1:
Red = live

Cable 2:
Red = live

Cable 3:
Red = not live


All earths and All Blues are connected:

If I connect Cable 1 red to Cable 3 red, all 8 lights come on.
If I connect Cable 2 red to Cable 3 red, all 8 lights come on.


I don't want to connect Cable 1 red to Cable 2 red as both are live feeds.


Any ideas why this would be the case?

Thanks.

 

[ban-all-sheds]

I've .. re-connected the cables in the same positions as they were before.

My initial thought is that you haven't.

Because..

However, now when I turn on one switch, all 8 lights come on together but really dim, and the other switch does nothing.

It wasn't like that before.

Is moving the switch all that you did? You didn't touch the lights?

What's connected to each switch?

So I have tested the cables

What with?

All earths and All Blues are connected

Red & blue?

And the blues were all just connected together before?

 

[junglistmatty]

The earths are all connected together.

I think I've figured it out.... That at some point, the 4 ceiling lights have replaced what was a rose light and one of the cables is a live / switched live not a Live/Neutral, hence why two of the cables going to the switch have a live red feed.... I just need to figure out which of those two cables is from the Consumer unit and which is the Live/Switched live cable.

I must have made a mistake jotting down cable positions, which was not good as I noted down that all the blues were connected before, but this can't be the case.

 

[Taylortwocities]

I don't want to connect Cable 1 red to Cable 2 red as both are live feeds.

.

They won't both be live. What happens if you do connect them together?

[/list]

 

[junglistmatty]

I managed to fix this, my suspicions of a rose ceiling light and an additional light added at some point later were correct.

Cable 2 was a switched live for the ceiling lights, so when I shorted the red a blue wires in this cable the ceiling lights came on.

Cable 1 was a permanant live feed (probably out on the ceiling rose)

Cable 3 went to the second light

Connecting cable 1 to cable 3 resulted in the second light coming on.... Obviously, the neutrals were not connected together previously!

 

[dhutch]

Scary.