Discuss Continuity on lighting circuit - weird results? in the Periodic Inspection Reporting & Certification area at ElectriciansForums.net

Welcome to ElectriciansForums.net - The American Electrical Advice Forum
Head straight to the main forums to chat by click here:   American Electrical Advice Forum

Reaction score
7
Hi

Running a quick test on a lighting circuit today, was doing R1 + R2 on downstair lights. Everything seemed OK, but upon trying to prove polarity by using switches obviously upon switching off the circuit goes open but when tried switching on again and testing again I got a wildly different figure. I initially thought I had a bad contact as figure was jumping about a bit but did after some messing get it to settle at a reasonable figure but upon trying the switch (off test O/C, switch on and test again) got another miles out figure. Tried this a few times and the readings went between approx 0.5 ohms and about 3.5ohms and everything inbetween.

Each time once I had a reading I disconnected probes then reconnected them and tested again to prove it wasn't a bad contact that was causing the problem but this gave results within 0.05ohm of each other. It was just upon using the switch it seemed to badly throw the result.

This was in fact present on 2 switches on the whole downstairs lighting circuit (the second case not as bad but still giving results different enough for concern).

My hunch is the switch is buggered? Is this a view others share? The light fitting was really awkward so had to test a number of times to confirm that it wasnt just a case of my probes not having good contact but it did seem to just be the switch causing this issue?

Anyone else experienced this?
 
switches can be a pain,they're prone to dust ingress and all kinds,since they are only cheap the best thing is just swap them then you can rule them out for sure,but that's almost certainly the problem.
 
i concur ^^^^.
 

Reply to Continuity on lighting circuit - weird results? in the Periodic Inspection Reporting & Certification area at ElectriciansForums.net

OFFICIAL SPONSORS

Electrical Goods - Electrical Tools - Brand Names Electrician Courses Green Electrical Goods PCB Way Electrical Goods - Electrical Tools - Brand Names Pushfit Wire Connectors Electric Underfloor Heating Electrician Courses
These Official Forum Sponsors May Provide Discounts to Regular Forum Members - If you would like to sponsor us then CLICK HERE and post a thread with who you are, and we'll send you some stats etc
This website was designed, optimised and is hosted by Untold Media. Operating under the name Untold Media since 2001.
Back
Top
AdBlock Detected

We get it, advertisements are annoying!

Sure, ad-blocking software does a great job at blocking ads, but it also blocks useful features of our website. For the best site experience please disable your AdBlocker.

I've Disabled AdBlock