Adding an Inline LightWave RF Dimmer Switch

[Darren Wood]

Hi All.

In our En-suite we have 3 MR16 downlighters, a bathroom cabinet( that incorporates two small halogen spot lights and a shaver socket, all controlled by a pull cord switch.

I would like to remove the pull cord switch and replace it with A Lightwave RF inline dimmer switch which is controlled remotely. The connections on the this are pretty basic live and neutral in and out and two earths.

I therefore thought that it was going to be simple job of wiring it up, however I just cant get my head around the wires in the loft and where to put this switch.

This photo shows the wires concerned. In summary there are 6 cables in total, one of these is 4 core the others are 3. 5 of the live wires all join in the terminal as can be seen and so do the earths and so do the neutrals.

My confusion is around the cable coming up from the bottom right of the photo which ran to the pull cord. The Black wire from this goes into the connector block in the middle of the photo and this then goes directly into another light fitting so this must be a live wire after the pull cord. That means that the red wire coming from that pull cord ( again wire coming from the bottom right of the photo ) is joining with all of the other red wires, this is the bit that is throwing me as surely this is the live before it goes into the switch, therefore surely there is a live feed going to all of the lights prior to the pull cord. Of course it may be that its perfectly ok to have a pull cord anywhere in the circuit ?

Ie i would suspect to see Live feed - into switch - into lights. Is it possible that its live feed - lights - switch ?

Can someone just help my telling me where in that bundle i wire in the new inline switch please. Any help really appreciated

The photo is on its side so when i refer to bottom right its actually right side top

Thanks

Darren​

 

[jackhammerJIM]

If you don't know ? are you competent to carry out this task ?

 

[plugsandsparks]

The switched live from the relay goes to the red wire, usually

 

[telectrix]

it may be that you need a neutral at the switch. without seeing the job, it's hard to advise. however, it's a simple job for a sparks to sort. if you post your location, one of us may be close.

 

[Deleted member 26818]

Live from supply to switch.
Switched live (may be a black wire) from switch to light fitting/s.
Neutral from light fitting/s to supply neutral.
By rights, the circuits should be RCD protected.

 

[Richard Burns]

If you are fitting the inline dimmable relay then you need a permanent supply to the dimmer and the other terminals are for the light fitting. The switch wire may be disconnected as it is no longer required.
The permanent line is the group of red cables, the neutral is the group of black (and blue) cables.
The light fitting cable should be readily identifiable.

 

[Darren Wood]

If you are fitting the inline dimmable relay then you need a permanent supply to the dimmer and the other terminals are for the light fitting. The switch wire may be disconnected as it is no longer required.The permanent line is the group of red cables, the neutral is the group of black (and blue) cables.The light fitting cable should be readily identifiable.

Thanks all for your replies, all very helpful. I appreciate your comment jackhammer, but of course we all have to learn sometime, if we got "a man" in for everything we didn't know then We would never learn anything.having slept on it and reading your comments my mistake yesterday was trying to suss out the wiring with the supply turned off (me being cautious). I will take my tester up today and label which are permanent live, switched live etc and this should help me understand the layout in my head.The light circuit does go back to the rcd in the garage which is what I assume you mean Spiniodon?Just one last question, I posted this wrongly on an American forum first and someone came back and said that the wiring seen in the photo wouldn't even be legal in the Us ?does it look OK to you - I guess he was referring to the use of the connection blocks ? It was done around 12 years ago when the house was built by the main electrician. I admit it's not the prettiest looking bunch of wires but it seems to workThanks again for your comments

 

[Richard Burns]

All electrical connections must be fully enclosed and no insulation (the red/black/yellow/blue/brown) should be exposed outside this enclosure.
Accessible horizontal top surfaces should be IP4X and sides and bottom IP2X.

The red /yellow/ blue three core cable is probably supplying a fan or such like and would presumably also need to be switched.

 

[Deleted member 26818]

I think the blue wire is from a 2 core cable and the yellow is in fact the earth sleeving.

 

[Richard Burns]

The OP said there was a four core cable (i.e. 3 core and earth).
I cannot see it in the picture but it is not clear. I have assumed red yellow blue from the blue core as I cannot see a brown.

 

[egg67]

OP saying lights,shaver and mirror all work of pull switch! in the wiring instructions for the lightwave inline dimmer it does state the all wiring should be done by a qualified person, its a job that will take about 5 min for some one that Knows what they are doing and would not cost a lot of money, its not hard for some one to work out what is a P,L and a S,L and they would not need to test it live to work it out, I think if you are thinking of doing that you should get some one in, but saying that from light fitting just trake back cables you will be able to work out L&N from pull cord find P,L and the rest will be plane sailing, have fun and try not to work live

 

[Darren Wood]

OP saying lights,shaver and mirror all work of pull switch! in the wiring instructions for the lightwave inline dimmer it does state the all wiring should be done by a qualified person, its a job that will take about 5 min for some one that Knows what they are doing and would not cost a lot of money, its not hard for some one to work out what is a P,L and a S,L and they would not need to test it live to work it out, I think if you are thinking of doing that you should get some one in, but saying that from light fitting just trake back cables you will be able to work out L&N from pull cord find P,L and the rest will be plane sailing, have fun and try not to work live

Many thanks Egg67 and all of the other contributors. I took the time today with the help of a second person to determine which of these blocks were the permanent live and which were the switched live and after understanding that in my head together with your helpful comments the job went very smoothly and all is working well.

I think what really threw me was the fact that the pull cord had a live going through it which was both red and black coming out of the other side and also the 4 core cable.

Thanks again

Darren

 

[egg67]

Nice to here it all went well, good job