Basic Wiring - ceiling light

[Gargamel]

Afternoon,

Was swapping over a light fitting yesterday

Existing rose was wired

three reds - into a central block marked Loop - no fwd connections
two black (twisted together) - into the neutral line to the pendant
one black - into the live line of the pendant

Earth (not connected)

So - install the new light

Move all the reds into a plastic block - not connected
wire up the neutral and live as previously connected

No light. tried swapping the live and neutral feeds into the light - nothing.

Gave up. Any ideas what I am doing wrong

[Engineer1]

not getting a sparky in? I will happily swap light fittings over, and may even work in areas that the government would rather I didn't but it's hardly sparkying if you are just attaching new stuff to the ends of existing wires. When you can't get things working then admit defeat before you blow your fuses or knaker something.

[Duke Thrust]

Are they like for like on the fittings?

Swap back to the old rose, see if everything still works.

If it does, have another look at the new rose and look for defects.

Edited by Duke Thrust on Monday 23 November 14:37

[Deva Link]

Gargamel said:

Afternoon,

Was swapping over a light fitting yesterday

Existing rose was wired

three reds - into a central block marked Loop - no fwd connections
>> What does "no fwd connections" mean?
two black (twisted together) - into the neutral line to the pendant
>> Correct
one black - into the live line of the pendant
>> This is switch live from the light switch and should be coloured red (by having red tape on it).

Earth (not connected)

So - install the new light

Move all the reds into a plastic block - not connected
>> They should be connected together in the same block.

wire up the neutral and live as previously connected

No light.
tried swapping the live and neutral feeds into the light - nothing.
>> Not surprising. It doesn't matter which way around the lamp is connected.

Gave up. Any ideas what I am doing wrong

It should look like this:

[Bigfatnath]

Have you been a silly sausage and not put the rewireable fuse back in or flicked the mcb back on...

Ill get my coat...

[Raverbaby]

Deva Link said:

Gargamel said:

Afternoon,

Was swapping over a light fitting yesterday

Existing rose was wired

three reds - into a central block marked Loop - no fwd connections
>> What does "no fwd connections" mean?
two black (twisted together) - into the neutral line to the pendant
>> Correct
one black - into the live line of the pendant
>> This is switch live from the light switch and should be coloured red (by having red tape on it).

Earth (not connected)

So - install the new light

Move all the reds into a plastic block - not connected
>> They should be connected together in the same block.

wire up the neutral and live as previously connected

No light.
tried swapping the live and neutral feeds into the light - nothing.
>> Not surprising. It doesn't matter which way around the lamp is connected.

Gave up. Any ideas what I am doing wrong

It should look like this:

The Black that was on its own should go to the Live of your light.
Connector Block your 3 Lives(REDS)
Connect the 2 Neutrals to the N of your light.
Although the diagram above is correct the cable coming from the switch will very often, and also in your case be a Black and Red as opposed to Red & Red.

[hairyben]

Well done for not making the classic DIY'er mistake of connecting all the blacks together and POP!

If you don't already have one, I'd suggest you grab yourself a simple voltage indicator (or multimeter) and test the terminals, you can't really do much diagnostic work without one and I couldn't recommend highly enough a way to "prove" a circuit dead before working on it...

Live (Reds) to Neutral (2x Black) should be live permanently, if not you have problem upstream of the light, maybe fuse/mcb

Switched live (1xblack) to neutral should be live only with the switch on, if not but L-N is okay this points to a problem with the switch/dimmer.