Home DIY

RG I survived last time you helped

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If you have 2 blue (or black) wires connected together in the back of your switch and 2 brown (or red) ones in each switch pole then you likely have a different setup than 3 plate and a different set of problems.

Most of testing you might want to do should be with the power off and by means of continuity.

It's a single pole switch with one red and one black. (Earthed socket)

ok, your switched live is the grey wire with white insulation tape on it, that's what's coming back from the wall switch. the red next to it will be the feed down to the switch

the blue dropping down is live at 240VAC (Uoc) and goes to the pendant - it should be swapped for the grey, then grey checked as connecting to the correct lamp holder terminal. this is important if the lamp is ES (Edison Screw) less so if BC (Bayonet Clip)

So what you have there is a sign of what's to come. The 2 outside ones are your power to your light fitting and are currently the wrong way round, blue wire should be in the N terminal, brown in LINE. I'm assuming that you have BLACK and RED wires in the centre as the colour balance is poor.

The BLACK wire in the 2nd position from left with the white sleeve is your switch line should have continuity with the BLACK wire in the back of the switch.

3rd position from left is the live feed to the switch, with the power to the system off you could remove these 2 wires and connect them together then check that you have continuity at the switch.

The next 4 positions are loop in and out of the lighting circuit. They should be red LINE and BLACK neutral.

I'm struggling to suggest ways for you to test it because there are so many safety warnings I'd have to give you. Clearly LINE & N at the moment are live, If you took the bulb out then N to EARTH should not have any voltage on it. If it does then your problem is somewhere else in the house wiring. Could be a short on the wiring circuit, you could carry out an IR test on the wiring to find out.

Annotated picture hopefully attached. I agree with RG - it looks like the bulb connections could be swapped judging by the colour, but you'd need to inspect the bulb holder to confirm this. The pink hoops hopefully show the three different cables; the two on the right are likely to be one from the previous ceiling rose in circuit and the other cable running to feed the next ceiling rose in the circuit.

If you grab a multimeter, I'd measure AC voltage of: live to ground (230V ish), neutral to ground (0v ish), live to neutral (230v ish). Before you go any further.

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It's bayonet.

From Left to right

Blue Grey Red Red Red Grey Grey Brown

there's only appx 3 fatalities per annum in the UK due to householder electrocution - go for it @dapthechap

live to neutral (0v ish).

and therein may be the issue, if live and neutral are raised to line voltage!

@dapthechap - take a photo of the distribution board breakers too, just want to see what sort of arrangements you may or may not have for earth leakage protection

Seems likely it's a faded black, looks grey now though.

here > http://www.juiceelectricalsupplies.co.uk/pdfs/kh2.pdf

Honest, woke up this morning, just wouldn't switch off. Worked when she went to bed.

Google shows exactly this, "I changed x and now y doesn't work"

Gonna pop in the loft and see if we have a dead rat

SWapped the pendant wires and no change.

It wouldn't change anything except reducing the chance of an electric shock to anyone changing a lightbulb. You need to find out if you have 240v between earth and N, which seems likely and then why? The other possibility is your switch drop is not a straight forward switch drop but that seems much less likely.

In fairness, with some experience and decent equipment you could trace that fault fairly quickly. As you mentioned, high likelihood of animal intervention.

Let me ch.....

SWapped the pendant wires and no change.

this statement alone qualifies my opinion that you shouldn't be allowed to touch any part of the electrical installation, nor sharp objects, nor hot things, nor spoons...

and for that reason, I'm out

OK then thanks for your help.

Thinking about it though, it surprises me that you don't have problems with any other lights. If the loop had a short it could affect them all.

If it were me I'd :-

disconnect the power
check continuity of the light switch
ir check the lighting circuit
check continuity of the light loop in
find the in side of the lighting loop and test polarity

That would give you a much better idea of what's going wrong. I do agree with RG though, you do seem to be out of your depth based on the light pendant polarity. No offence but it's not that safe for you to test the system if you've little experience of the way it works.

Not anymore.

It's OK, I'll get a grown up.

New avatar too.

@rodabod zing
@diable Cheers mate.

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What's the best current style from DIYkitchen?

What's the best current style from DIYkitchen?

Gangnam Style.