Light Wiring help please

daviephi

I have finally resorted to a forum please for help!

I have redecorated my dining room and changed ceiling and wall lights and I must admit i removed the old ceiling light and did not make not of the cable configuration..bad move.

Theceiling light is connected to a dual dimmer switch, I also have 2 wall lights in the room that work from the the same dimmer

The new ceiling light works fine (connected that a few weeks ago) but I connected up the wall lights yesterday and they did not come on at all. Checked all wiring to wall lights and it was fine and they are both connected up by a simple wiring config ..live/neutral.earth.

Then I got to thinking perhaps I have connected the ceiling light up wrong and somehow the power is not getting from that to the wall lights.

From the ceiling I have 2 cables coming down:

cable 1 has earth, red, yellow, blue
cable 2 has earth, black, red.

The house was built in 1990 so old colours.

At present the:
reds are in a seperate connector togther .
earths are connected up in another connector.
black, blue and yellow are in another connector and the blue cable from the lamp is connected to the yellow, and the brown from the lamp connected to the black.
Hope this makes sense.

Any ideas why the wall light not working

PS I was trying to get this working with my Father in law yesterday who knows a few things about electrics but he was stumped, we also checked inside the dimmer but lookes OK.

PPS the wal lights I am putting up have 7 watt max eco bulbs.

DVardysShadow

daviephi wrote: »

At present the:
reds are in a seperate connector togther .
earths are connected up in another connector.
black, blue and yellow are in another connector and the blue cable from the lamp is connected to the yellow, and the brown from the lamp connected to the black.
Hope this makes sense.

No it does not make sense. If brown from the lamp is connected to black and blue from the lamp is connected to yellow then brown and blue from the lamp must be connected because black blue and yellow are together in a connector.

Could you please distinguish between connectors giving full metallic connection [useful info] and connector blocks with more than 1 separate metallic connection [irrelevant info]?

daviephi

Thanks for reply.

All connectors I am using are the standard metal connectors with the clear plastic sheath.
Just to confirm again:

from ceileing looks like I have a 3 cor and a 2 core cable.
old colours

red(live) from the 2 cor and 3 core are connected togther into a connecting terminal (described above)
The yelloa nd blue from the 3 core and the black from 3 core are connected into another terminal (as described above)
the earth wires from the the 2 and 3 core are connected in terminal (as described above).

The live (brown) from ceiling lamp is connected to the black from 2 core
The neutral (blue) from ceiling lamp is connected to the yellow from the 3 core.

the ceiling light works fine from the dual dimmer but the 2 wall lights dont come on connected to dual dimmer when press the other dimmer button.

DVardysShadow

daviephi wrote: »

red(live) from the 2 cor and 3 core are connected togther into a connecting terminal (described above)
The yelloa nd blue from the 3 core and the black from 3 core are connected into another terminal (as described above)
the earth wires from the the 2 and 3 core are connected in terminal (as described above).

The live (brown) from ceiling lamp is connected to the black from 2 core
The neutral (blue) from ceiling lamp is connected to the yellow from the 3 core.

3 core has no black?????

I have a feeling that 3cYellow goes to 2cBlack, but I would want to find a way of checking this out, without actually making the connection. Do you have any kind of voltmeter or continuity tester [buzzbox?]

daviephi

3c has no black ..just red,yellow, blue and earth

Father in law has a voltmeter i think..

DVardysShadow

daviephi wrote: »

3c has no black ..just red,yellow, blue and earth.

So, are you going to correct your description? Never mind, you can take responsibility if it all goes wrong

Father in law has a voltmeter i think.

Bulbs out of wall lights. Disconn Yellow.
If Volts from Reds to Yellow = 0 and Volts from Reds to Blue = 230 then continue.

Replace bulbs in wall lights. If Volts from Reds to Yellow = nearly 230 then connect Yellow to Black from 2c. Switch lights on.

daviephi

OK thanks, will give it a go and let you know.

PS did not understand what you meant about changing my description?

DVardysShadow

daviephi wrote: »

PS did not understand what you meant about changing my description?

You said that there was no black on the 3 core. This is now ambiguous. Have you misdescribed a wire or have you added a totally false wire?

daviephi

there is no black , i presume it is 3 c as it has a yellow,red blue and earth. the other wire (2c) has the black , with red and earth.

Remember these are old colours which are correct , my house built in 1990. I think new colour 3c does have black.