Help with tracing electrics

[ss]

I have a (approx) 6 x foot toilet, Currently has 4 x halogen lamps (in seperate locations), I want to repace halogen with a normal central located light fitting (using LED), I am trying to locate the main feed and disconnect the halogens, Is it a case of ripping the plasterboard off or do you guys with experience know a better way, so far I can only manage to get about 6" of wire out the ceiling at each halogen location, would appear they are linked to a transformer or whatever.

if possible I would like to keep the ceiling intact or with minor repair.

[Tim Watts]

Can you lift a floorboard above?

Or borrow/buy a usb cam or endoscope or even a mirror to look through the hole in the ceiling?

[tabbypurr]

torch + phone camera shoved up.

NT

[ss]

No, tiled floor above.

[ss]

Ok will give that a go, :-) need to borrow sons mobile as my brick doesnt take pics.

[Roger Mills]

Blimey. Do you need to stand on a ladder to have a pee?

[Dave Plowman (News)]

You'd need to know if they were installed without removing the ceiling or having access from above. If they were, should be reversible. Any signs of an old central light being there?

You can get transformers which fit through the hole for the fitting. That's how you'd do it if fitting everything without easy access.

[spuorgelgoog]

Or just aim very carefully?

No. Twos might be more tricky though. Trebuchet?

Owain

[Etaoin Shrdlu]

+1 for the endoscope. At about a tenner, the image isn't great, but very useful nonetheless. Especially being illuminated.

[ARW]

I have used them. And they were useless. Probably best left to sticking up human orifices.

[ss]

Dont know how they were fitted but there appears to be two layers of plasterboard on the ceiling and then papered with an embossed pattern paper. So I suspect the original ceiling was hacked in to and then covered over with another sheet and then papered to avoid skimming.

The toilet (6 x 6 Corrected for previous poster, not 6 x 1)

The location of the toilet is where the backdoor used to be so possibly the feed came from elsewhere, with the alterations and extension that have previously been done its a guessing game.

[Tim Watts]

I got a fairly useful waterproof USB cam on 5m of cable for fairly small amounts on ebay.

Whilst not super, it was very useful for proving that all my soakaways were s**te. I let the school borrow it for abit of pond exploring too.

[DerbyBorn]

ss wrote in news:DW6vx.51898$ [e-mail]:

Would a cable / stud detector find it?

[John Rumm]

Are they mains or low voltage halogens? (The type of lamp will tell you)

[harry]

The normal method is to take all the fittings down and determine what's what by tugging the wires. You might need to remove any clips near the holes. The old wires can be used to draw new in quite often.

[Mike Tomlinson]

En el artículo , ss escribió:

Have a look at the switch, if it has both L+N in and out (obviously, only L will actually be switched) and is a pull switch mounted on the ceiling, you may be able to drill a hole in the centre where you want the replacement light and fish a new wire to the switch as the distance is short.

[ss]

[ss]

yes I have managed to get all the fittings with transformer out of the void.

[ss]

No pull switch, the switch is wall mounted outside the toilet.

I have another plan though as I have got the fittings out of the ceiling... I will attach a loose fitting cable tie around the cable then another tie grip tightly attching an endescope thingy to the first cable tie, this should allow me to slide the thingy along the cable and trace its source.

You see I dont know if there was an original central light fitting in the toilet area (it is a remodel to the house) or if elec had to be cabled in, hence not too sure of where the cable comes from to feed the halogens.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

May well have been wired up without removing the ceiling or whatever, then.