Spotlights in bathroom ceiling - bulb blown, now none work.

[Gary11]

Hi, I have x4 spotlights recessed into my bathroom ceiling, they're the gu10 fitting 50w bulbs on a pull cord dimmer switch.

Recently I painted the ceiling and to avoid getting paint on the lights, I pulled them down from their holes. When the paint was dry I put them back in, one of them twanged in on the spring clip a bit harder than I would have liked (if you know what I mean by that?), anyway when I put the lights on the one that went in a bit roughly was shining extra bright, so I had a feeling it was ready to blow, so I left it to do just that before replacing it.

A few days later I was at work and my wife phoned to say all the lights were off in the bathroom, so I said flip the switch on the circuit board and they should come on; which she did but the lights remained off. When I got home I checked the switch on the board and it was in the on position, but no lights, so I thought well maybe they've all blown? Thinking this was probably unlikely but not sure what else to try I swapped the bulb that I knew was probably at fault and one other too, but still no lights.

Is it possible that the switch has faulted, when I assume the "bright bulb" blew?

Any advice would be appreciated, thanks.

Gary

 

[amlu]

power off, join the switch wires in the dimmer with a temporary connector, power on. If it works that way then dimmer is gone and needs replacement.
if that fails it maybe some hidden junction box and its a call for electrician and some fault finding.

4 50 watts lamps is quite a load, dimmer may not be rated enough? worth replacing them with LED this days...

 

[Marvo]

I remember the days when lamps (bulbs) used to be internally fused so when the filament blew it didn't take the dimmer with it.

 

[Gary11]

power off, join the switch wires in the dimmer with a temporary connector, power on. If it works that way then dimmer is gone and needs replacement.
if that fails it maybe some hidden junction box and its a call for electrician and some fault finding.

4 50 watts lamps is quite a load, dimmer may not be rated enough? worth replacing them with LED this days...

Hi, thanks for the reply, so just bypass the switch and see if they come on? Sounds like a plan, thanks.

I did try some dimmable led bulbs in there but they made a buzz sound and flickered on and off, so I did wonder if the switch was actually rated too high for the led's? I did mention it to an electrician in my local hardware shop and he said it might be an issue between the resistors in the led bulbs and the resistor in the switch? No idea about this though. Ideally however I do want to use led's but I haven't been able to find a dimmer light pull switch which is designed for the low voltage led's. Any further advice on this would be great, if I have to replace the switch anyway, then may as well do the job to take led's.

 

[Gary11]

I remember the days when lamps (bulbs) used to be internally fused so when the filament blew it didn't take the dimmer with it.

Is it a common issue?

 

[Gary11]

I think this is the switch:- Greenbrook Pull Cord Dimmer Switch 250W | Switches & Sockets | Screwfix.com

 

[telectrix]

i'd say offhand that that switch is unsuitable for LEDs.

 

[Gary11]

i'd say offhand that that switch is unsuitable for LEDs.

It would appear so yes. Haven't been able to find a replacement that is suitable for led's yet. I need to have another search, more so if it is the switch at fault now.

 

[telectrix]

you could relocate the switch position to outside the bathroom, fit a wall mounted dimmer. better choice.

 

[Gary11]

I was hoping to find a swap for the ceiling switch, hopefully this will do with x4 6.5w dimmable bulbs. Dimpull - Bathroom Pull Cord Dimmer
The only thing that concerns me is that it says a neutral is required for this switch. The current switch that I have now removed (after discovering that it was the switch at fault, thanks for the suggestion to temporarily join the wires and test) only has x2 red live wires and an earth, one red wire has and of brown insulating tape on, but I'm assuming this was for the electrician to know which wire was which, for in and out of the switch?

(P.s. I've had to switch to the mobile version of the forum, for some reason my iPad was no longer allowing me to post on the normal version?)

 

[Gary11]

Ignore the link to the bulbs, I didn't put that in there? Just the link to the switch was me.