Lighting problem

pizzaboy

Hi all.

I have attempted to replace a fluorescent light fitting in my kitchen today,and have ended up with no lights in my living room and hall not working now.It says in the instructions not to connect the red wires,so im confused as how to wire the light up,ive tried just leaving the earth and neutral in and it just blows a fuse?I originally did connect the red wires and it worked but it wouldn't turn off.Ive been blowing the fuse all morning and im very confused now.

Any help appreciated thanks.

shandypants5

how many wires do you have coming out of the celing?

usually light fittings just have 3 terminals to connect to.
Live
Nutral
Earth.

pizzaboy

shandypants5 wrote: »

how many wires do you have coming out of the celing?

usually light fittings just have 3 terminals to connect to.
Live
Nutral
Earth.

2 lots of three wires,i noticed while taking out the original, the reds wires were in a separate block and i think 2 black wires were connected to live and neutral with the earth in the middle.

Thanks for replying so soon.

greyteam1959

Sounds like a two way switched circuit......you should have written down which wires went where !!!!!!

Incisor

pizzaboy wrote: »

2 lots of three wires,i noticed while taking out the original, the reds wires were in a separate block and i think 2 black wires were connected to live and neutral with the earth in the middle.

Thanks for replying so soon.

So, you have 2 cables, each with a red and a black and an earth?

Almost certainly 1 cable goes to the switch and one is the incoming mains. Can you work out which is which?

[If you didn't work it out before you disconnected, you really should be leaving this work to someone else.]

shandypants5

sounds about normal...
! red wire will prob be the incoming live in the same cable as the outgoing nutral..
The other black red will go to the switch normally.. red = live to the switch black = switched live back to the light..

So I would imagine that the 2 reds connect to each other and nothing else.
Then the 2 blacks connect to the light in the live nutral connections.

The earths probrably go together in the earth connection.

pizzaboy

This is what it looks like at minute if it helps.

shandypants5

AHHHH... I see the problem..
Your lights are out of focus!!!:rotfl:

Sorry only kidding..
It looks right to me. unless you have a 2 way system with 2 switches??
was that how the old light was wired?
If so then I would say there is a fault within the light itself if it blows the fuse...

shandypants5

This is what you would usually have, but you dont have the extra cable going off to the next light...

Are you sure you havent lost 1 and left it tucked up in the celing??

pizzaboy

There is only 1 switch,so according to that diagram both black wires should be in nutral connection?,i think i tried this already,ive had black wires connected to live and nutral both ways round without success ,why would this affect all my living room lights,ive checked all other fuses and they are ok

shandypants5

NO !!! dont!! ignore the cable going to the next light...you may not have a next light cable its not always there.
You have 2 reds together. and one black in each of the lamp terminals..

is one black wire marked with red tape?? (thats the switched live)
if so this needs to be in the lamp live terminal

Are you SURE you havent lost another cable behind the plasterboard??? lighting usually runs in a chain and if you have left a wire out that may be why your other lights have no power.
So to clarify... when you switch this light on now what happens.