Wiring to a new outside light

[Neil]

Tried to fit and wire up a new outside light fitting today, but it's not working. I'm in a brand new house (moved in May) so the wiring is to the new standards. The house had a cable pre-wired and available for the light (and a switch inside), but covered with a plate on the outside bricks, so removed that, and was then stuck with connecting the new light (red, blue and earth connections); to the supplied mains. That was in a four-core cable, with brown; black; grey and earth wires.

It seems like the cabling is not correct inside the house; and I do remember the electrician from the builders saying it was disconnected at the switch, but that doesn't appear to be true. With a meter it shows there is no power at the cable, and I'll get the builders back to check, but I'm unclear how the wires should be connected at the light in any case. Is there a "normal" situation for this now?

Neil

[Gel]

Could be wired for 2 way switching; try here.

[ARWadsworth]

What cables are behind the switch for this outside light?

Adam

[Neil]

Sorry for the delay.... setup as follows.

Firstly this is a double switch. The right hand switch operates the internal hall light (which works normally), and there is a duplicate single switch that operates the same light further along the hall. The left hand switch operates the outside light which isn't working. The switch has L1, L3 and L2 terminals along the top, and L3, L2 and L1 along the bottom. There are five cables coming into the switch back. Omitting earths, these are wired as follows :

Cable 1 - Brown to Lower L2; Blue to common block holding blues. Cable 2 - Brown to Upper L1; Black (in brown sleeve) to lower L2; Grey (in brown sleeve) to Lower L3 Cable 3 - Brown to lower L2; Blue to common block holding blues. Cable 4 - Brown to Lower L1; Black (in red or is it brown sleeve) to Upper L2; Grey (in blue sleeve) to common block holding blues. Cable 5 - Brown to Lower L3; Blue to common block holding blues.

nb. Cables 3 & 4 have the same config as the light outside that is not working, i.e. black, brown, grey (and earth).

Or looking at it from a terminal perspective: Upper L1 - Brown to cable 2 Upper L3 - no connections Upper L2 - Black in red (or is it brown?) sleeve to Cable 4 Lower L3 - brown to cable 5; grey (in brown sleeve) to lower L2 Lower L2 -Black in brown sleeve to Cable 2; Brown to cable 1; brown to cable 3 Lower L1 - Brown to Cable 4

Can anyone see obviously what is wrong?

Neil

[ARWadsworth]

It looks like the the brown, black and grey cable (cable 4) is the cable that runs from the switch to the outside light.

The electrician has supplied a cable suitable for a PIR sensor light. As your outside light is not a sensor light (ie no PIR detector and you just want to switch it on when you want to) then at the light fitting use the grey wire as neutral and the black wire for live and then teminate the brown wire behind both the switch and the light with a piece of strip connector and do not connect it to anything else. Then place a link wire between the lower L2 and the lower L1 on the switch. If the switch cannot accept 4 wires in one terminal then move one of the brown wires from cable 1 or 3 to the lower L1 before inserting the link wire so that there are only 3 wires in each of the lower L2 and L1.

Hope this make sense

Adam

[Neil]

Great, thanks Adam, will try tomorrow. :-)

ps. In fact the light I purchased *does* have a PIR detector in-built, although the wiring diagram and terminal block within it still only seems to need a Neutral (Blue); Earth; and Live (brown) feed.

I've now successfully fitted the same light on the rear of my property, where there was somewhat simpler pre-wiring, and on that where a brown feed had intentionally been left unconnected by the builders. I'd expected just the same on this front light, but there was no wire spare as I explained.

Neil