Electrical advice - light won't turn off

Why is your wife doing it? lol

Follow what "Keyser Soze" has said.

Two ways to find the switch wire.. if you can set your multi meter to check continuity then turn power off. drop the fitting and test between the brown and blue of both cables. they could both show continuity or no contiunity or only one will show it. Flick one of the switches and try again. Which ever cable is now showing continuity or is now showing none is your switch wire. Mark the blue core with some brown tape and that goes to the live on the fittting. If you cant check continuity then seperate all cores and slap the power on :p which ever cable has no power is the switch line. If you cant be bothered with all this then as its last light online you will probs get away with just banging it up with the browns connected together and just put the blues in L and N.
 
Keyser Soze said:
Once the main's is back on both brown wires will be live and as you flick the switch one of the blue wires will become live use the multi meter to determine which is the switched live.

that then goes to the live connection on the fitting.
the other blue wire goes to the neutral connection.
you then need a connector to join the 2 brown wires together(a plastic coated one) which should then be taped up (red tape) for extra safety.

Technically twisting and taping the 2 live browns together will work but will probably void your house insurance and you may die.
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Ahh thanks, I'll have a look at it tomorrow. I actually have a another light that has two switches and hasn't been replaced yet so I will have a look at that. I'll get a plastic connector for the two browns and some red leccy tape.

Can you give a brief outline on how to use the multi meter to test this (dont want to electricute myself).

Actually ZG002 has just clarified it a bit - but where exactly do I place the +ve terminal and -ve terminal from the multimeter. If I'm not on the forums tomorrow then you know something has gone wrong :).
 
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HAz said:
why is your wife doing this? get her back in the kitchen for Christ sake!
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shes not my wife... yet.
Bless her, she did get herself back in the kitchen after attempting some DIY to make my dinner. (she has found some of the replies funny - but I may now be stretching the line).
 
we need pic's.. lol

Not sure on your multi meter mate. You just need to set it to read voltage in the right range if you are going to try the second method of turning it on and testing for the live. But id go with the continuity check i mentioned if you can set your meter to continuity. as its a safer method. Also im guessing you are in a new build (or something thats quite new) it wont matter how many switches you have for a light you will always have a loop for lives,neutral, and earth then your switch wire :) so dont worry about the next fitting it will be the same deal but at a guess will have 3 cables.
 
OMG u do know if u touch any thing in the house thats wired your now braking the law

17th ED (google it)

Althou this has not stoped me from rewiring half my mum & dads house (when we we're on 16th ed)
 
nah, you can change light fittings and replace wall sockets. I thought its just that you can't add new sockets etc under the new guidelines.
 
oneilldo said:
nah, you can change light fittings and replace wall sockets. I thought its just that you can't add new sockets etc under the new guidelines.
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This.

He is straight swapping. Not adding or altering the wiring of the installation

so give over with the OMG's
 
ZG002 said:
Why is your wife doing it? lol

Follow what "Keyser Soze" has said.

Two ways to find the switch wire.. if you can set your multi meter to check continuity then turn power off. drop the fitting and test between the brown and blue of both cables. they could both show continuity or no contiunity or only one will show it. Flick one of the switches and try again. Which ever cable is now showing continuity or is now showing none is your switch wire. Mark the blue core with some brown tape and that goes to the live on the fittting. If you cant check continuity then seperate all cores and slap the power on :p which ever cable has no power is the switch line. If you cant be bothered with all this then as its last light online you will probs get away with just banging it up with the browns connected together and just put the blues in L and N.
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that's a good point, if you did this^^ it would function as it should and would avoid the need to test. (should test though for future reference)
And no it doesn't matter if their is 1 or 2 only one of the cables is for the switch the other 1 runs from the mains and is constantly live (like has been said their will be 3 cables in the other lights 2 mains and 1 from the switch(s).).

edit...
I would definately just wire it up like this^^^ it would avoid messing around with the live circuit.
 
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ZG002 said:
we need pic's.. lol

Not sure on your multi meter mate. You just need to set it to read voltage in the right range if you are going to try the second method of turning it on and testing for the live. But id go with the continuity check i mentioned if you can set your meter to continuity. as its a safer method. Also im guessing you are in a new build (or something thats quite new) it wont matter how many switches you have for a light you will always have a loop for lives,neutral, and earth then your switch wire :) so dont worry about the next fitting it will be the same deal but at a guess will have 3 cables.
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I have just undone the light upstairs and it has 3 sets of wires coming in. I am going to undo the light downstairs now to confirm that she can count.

ZG002 said:
If you cant be bothered with all this then as its last light online you will probs get away with just banging it up with the browns connected together and just put the blues in L and N..
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Think I'll go for this option but would still like to check the wires with my multimeter. So do I just place the +ve probe against the brown wire and the -ve against the blue wire from the SAME set of wires.

What do you mean by the last light online? Is this that its the last light on the circuit and does this explain why it has two sets wires but the light on upstairs (which works and has two switches) has 3 sets of wires

Thanks for the help
 
oneilldo said:
I have just undone the light upstairs and it has 3 sets of wires coming in. I am going to undo the light downstairs now to confirm that she can count.



Think I'll go for this option but would still like to check the wires with my multimeter. So do I just place the +ve probe against the brown wire and the -ve against the blue wire from the SAME set of wires.

What do you mean by the last light online? Is this that its the last light on the circuit and does this explain why it has two sets wires but the light on upstairs (which works and has two switches) has 3 sets of wires

Thanks for the help
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Yes the last light on the circuit will only have the 1 cable from the main circuit and 1 from the switch.

The one upstairs will have 2 from the main circuit(one from the previous room's light and one going to the next room's light) and one from the switch.

Ignore the fact that their are 2 switches they are wired together and don't both go to the light. Their will only be one cable from the switch(s)
 
I finally got round to having a look at it today, the following picture shows what it looks like (sorry about the quality). The socket for light allows two wires to be placed in it for live and two for neutral.

IMG_4824-1.jpg


I can't find my multimeter and have tried wiring the browns together but it then didnt work.
 
Any ideas guys, I have tried wiring the brown wires together in a seperate connector and then tried one of the blues in the Live and one in neutral connection for light. This didnt work (didnt turn on no matter what was done to the switch). I then swapped the blues over (i.e. the one in live was change to neutral and the one in neutral was plugged in the live) again this yielded the same results. I can't seem to find my multimeter.
 
Is there an extra cable missing from the light fitting that your missus has pushed up out the way? If the light was part of a ring i would expect there to be three cables at the fitting not just two. Sorry to sound patronising but please don't try and just randomly screw cables into the blocks on the light fitting without testing them first you could get seriously hurt.
 
You need to test to see if there is actually power at the light fitting. You need your multi meter or a voltage tester.
 
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