Switching Problem With Led Downlighters

[quembre]

Hi there. First post. I'm a keen DIYer and like to try some of the simpler electrical tasks like moving sockets, replacing ceiling roses, etc. I've recently moved house to a 30 year old chalet bungalow and decided to replace the ceiling pendants with GU10 LED downlighters. I've done this in other homes several times before without a hitch but appear to have done something wrong this time. Perhaps someone could help?

So far I've replaced the pendants/ceiling roses in my lounge and dining room with 6 and 4 downlighters respectively. The dining room is fine but I find now that the 3 gang switch in the hall which operates the hall, stairs and light outside the front door, will only operate these lights when the lounge lights are switched on. Furthermore, switching the lounge lights off will switch off the hall, stairs or front door light off as well if they are on. These lights cannot be switched on again until the lounge lights are switched back on!

Can anyone make any suggestions or should I just swallow my pride and ring a spark!

Cheers,

Rob

 

[Lurch]

Well you've wired it up wrong. Can't say anything more than that with the details given.

 

[bluetobits]

Sounds like you may have fed the hall, stairs and outside lighting loop with a switched feed from the lounge pendant

 

[quembre]

Thanks for the quick reply guys. Yes, I reckon you're right Lurch. What more info would you need and I'll do my best to provide it? B2B, could that have happened even though I wasn't working at these lights? The lounge rose was supplied from a junction box however the dining room rose was looped in. I'd never encountered a ceiling rose before that wasn't the loop in type. I must have made a bad connection in the rose. I haven't moved in yet. I'll lift the floorboards when I'm there in the morning again and see if I can spot my mistake.

If any of you can suggest any means of checking/diagnosing the issue further, I'd appreciate the help.

Thanks in advance.

Rob

 

[Lurch]

The issue will be with a cross connection between a permanent live and a switched live in the lounge wiring, you cannot have done this in the lounge if it didn't have a permanent feed there. Did you change the switches as well?

 

[quembre]

Hi Lurch. The only electrical wiring I've touched is the wiring under the floorboards to the ceiling rose in the lounge and then the dining room next door. There is no two way switching between these two rooms. Each room has a 1gang switch switching a ceiling rose in the centre of the room. The lounge had a rose with a live, neutral and earth going to it from a piece of flex connected to a junction box in the ceiling void. The 4 terminal junction box had the live from the flex going to TERMINAL 1 where it joined one of the reds from the switch cable. Moving clockwise, TERMINAL 2 was all the earths, then TERMINAL 3 had the second red from the switch cable together with a red from a live cable (1) and a red from live cable (2). Finally TERMINAL 4 had all the neutrals from the rose and live cables (1) and (2).

All I did was replace the conductors from the flex going to the pendant with a piece of 1mm cable to 6 GU10 LED downlighters using Chocolate Boxes at each downlighters for the connections.

I'm going to lift the floor boards shortly to see if I mistakenly crossed the lives. How can you identify live in and live out of the junction box? Or does it matter?

Cheers

 

[Lurch]

I'm going to lift the floor boards shortly to see if I mistakenly crossed the lives. How can you identify live in and live out of the junction box? Or does it matter?

Doesn't matter, you just need to identify switched and unswitched.

 

[quembre]

Sorted guys. You put me on the right track. I just remade all the connections iusing different junction box with a little more room to see where everything was going and it worked first time. Thanks for all your help.

Rob

 

[Manator]

Thanks for letting us know