I have a problem with my landing light. It has a switch upstairs and one downstairs. It will operate from either switch, trun on and off, but if I switch it on downstairs it will not switch off upstairs etc. I have checked the wiring and it has a permanent live wire to the COM and L2 terminals on both switches, L1 is a black wire and L2 is red. Is this correct?
My first house had this problem. It should be like the diagram. Real electricians should be on in a while to see what you can do to correct the wiring. The three cores between the switches should have been red, blue and yellow under the pre 2004 colours I believe. It would appear that your installation does not have the correct three core wiring between the switches and I really don't know what you can do about it apart from getting an electrician to rewire the switches and possible the light fitting.
Not really because the tester needs an n to function, it will also function when dibbed on t' patent cpc, that is with the presumption that there is a cpc tbqh.
Hi Alvin, Does your switches look like this? As for the wire colours, not everyone sleeves or marks them, so with the circuit isolated, you can check continuity with your multimeter/tester.
To be honest I can't tell. All I can see are the 3 wires to one switch and 6 to the other. The only tester I have is one of the screwdriver types where you touch the end to a wire and put your finger on the other end, if it is live the bulb inside lights up.
You need something like this to get reliable (and safe!) results. Could it be your L1 and L2 are the wrong way around? When did this stop working?
The full history is : I changed the bulb and after changing it the light would not switch off. I changed the light fitting thinking it might be wrong, making sure I marked the wires and fitted them correctly into the new light. It still did the same. I then changed both switches, for the same make and model, again noting every wire and replacing as they were. This is when it started the turn on and off from the same switch. I had an electrician look at them and he fiddled with the wires and said he couldn't find what the fault was and the only thing he could suggest was renewing the wiring, but this would make a huge mess and cost a lot of money. I checked the wires myself after looking at sites like this online, and found that instead of a live and swithed live I have 2 Live wires.
You don't show what colour is in the COM terminal? You don't say which terminals have two cores in the them, and which just one. When two cores, what are the colours of all cores? A photo would really help, behind each switch.
I will take a photo tomorrow when I am home. But all the terminals in the upstairs switch have 2 cores, L1 has 2 black, L2 has 2 Red. The electrician has wrapped the cores in the Com terminals in Blue tape so I can't see what color they are.
Ideally need to see the cores colours and the what sheath the cores belong to (if that makes sense?).
Hi Phil, I bought a multi meter disconnected all the wires and tested each one. Only the Red from the Circuit wire is live when disconnected. I have reconnected exactly as in your diagram, the Live red to the L1 terminal, and it is still the same. Could it be the connections to the light fitting?
Wires terminated in switch terminals are only ever live (there are no neutrals). The colours are immaterial and in an ideal install would all be coloured red. The reason that the light won't switch off is because there is a permanent live to it when the switches are in a certain position. It is definitely a wire in the switch causing it not how the light is wired. The two wires in the COM on the landing switch are causing the problem, I think they are a loop-in-loop-out L. Both of these wires need to be in L1 or L2 and only one wire, the link to the other COM in the downstairs switch, should be in the COM. Separate one of the wires in the COM and put it in L1. If that doesn't sort it put it in L2 and if THAT doesn't sort it put it back in the COM and do the same with the other one in the COM.
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