PIR light electrics?

[A.Lee]

I was doing a few jobs for someone today (there is a long story there about my day,but I wont go into it now.) Anyway, they said they had fitted a new PIR activated floodlight on the wall. It wouldnt work, would I have a look? OK, so check the fuse, and connectors on the inside switch.All looked ok there. Then she says 'I think there's power to it, as I got a shock when I touched it'. Riiiight. Take out the fuse, and go to open the junction box on the light. A 6 or 7 way connector block. What stood out were blocks 1 and 2. Block

1 had brown and yellow connected, block 2 had yellow and brown. Oh dear. I swapped them around after showing them the fault. They said they had paid an electrician to fit it, though I doubted it.

Turn the light on, but nothing other than a click from the PIR box when the inside switch was turned on/off.

My first thought was that the earth/live connector had runied the PIR sensor, so it would never work. I didnt have time to mess around with it any more today. So - chuck it away and get a new one?, or maybe a quick fix is possible?

Thanks Alan.

[Andrew Gabriel]

If someone made that mistake, I wouldn't rule out several similarly stupid ones. Check all the wiring related to it.

[David Hansen]

On Sat, 19 Jan 2008 20:10:13 +0000 someone who may be alan@darkroom.+.com (A.Lee) wrote this:-

Is the colour of the sheath yellow, as you have stated, or green and yellow? There is a difference.

Yellow coloured insulation does not indicate an earth connection. Rather it indicates a live connection in the old fixed wiring scheme. The other colours for live conductors being red and blue.

Is the light fitting perhaps wired with three core and earth cable, the three cores being red, yellow and blue? If it is then the yellow conductor should probably have been sleeved with red and the blue conductor with black at the ends.

[The Medway Handyman]

Why would a PIR light be wired with three core and earth cable?

[A.Lee]

No, it was yellow and green - just a length of outer at the junction box, as it was std. T+E to the light. Maybe I should have made that clearer. Alan.

[David Hansen]

On Sun, 20 Jan 2008 10:56:21 GMT someone who may be "The Medway Handyman" wrote this:-

Two possibilities:

1) that sort of cable was to hand. 2) it allows the light to be turned on at the switch (something that may be useful in some circumstances).

However, that was not the case in this particular case.

[Mike Barnes]

Ours are wired that way so that two are linked: either PIR turns on both lamps (and a third lamp that doesn't have a PIR).