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electrical advice

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  • 18-03-2015 11:53pm
    #1
    daithi1988
    Registered Users Posts: 5 ✭


    Hi there,

    First post so thanks in advance for any advice you can give me.

    It's a simple wiring issue I have.

    Three outdoor lights on the front of a cottage. All wired into each other and powered, through the middle one over the front door, by a plug and socket inside the door. Not ideal I know it's an old cottage and the old guy who lived there put em all up.

    The cable used on the lights is that small round grey cable with blue and brown and no earth.

    I want to replace the cable in the lights with a roll of 3 core and earth I have in the shed. 2 brown, a blue and an earth And wire it to an existing double gang switch inside the door. One of the switches powers the hall light the other is free. The switch is fed with 2 core t&e. Perfect.

    Trouble is I've never used 3 core and earth before so I'm not sure how to connect the 2 browns to the switch and do I just loop power from the com ports? How do I wire the lights then in relation to the 3 core and earth? I have a feeling one of the browns is going to become a neutral or something...

    Or should I just use regular t&e instead?

    Anyway that's it, sorry I can't post pics. First post and All....


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    #2
    oscarBravo
    Technology & Internet Moderators Posts: 28,807 Mod ✭✭✭✭oscarBravo


    Moved from Open Source.


  • Options
    #3
    aido79
    Registered Users Posts: 5,374 ✭✭✭aido79


    daithi1988 wrote: »
    Hi there,

    First post so thanks in advance for any advice you can give me.

    It's a simple wiring issue I have.

    Three outdoor lights on the front of a cottage. All wired into each other and powered, through the middle one over the front door, by a plug and socket inside the door. Not ideal I know it's an old cottage and the old guy who lived there put em all up.

    The cable used on the lights is that small round grey cable with blue and brown and no earth.

    I want to replace the cable in the lights with a roll of 3 core and earth I have in the shed. 2 brown, a blue and an earth And wire it to an existing double gang switch inside the door. One of the switches powers the hall light the other is free. The switch is fed with 2 core t&e. Perfect.

    Trouble is I've never used 3 core and earth before so I'm not sure how to connect the 2 browns to the switch and do I just loop power from the com ports? How do I wire the lights then in relation to the 3 core and earth? I have a feeling one of the browns is going to become a neutral or something...

    Or should I just use regular t&e instead?

    Anyway that's it, sorry I can't post pics. First post and All....

    If you don't understand basic switching then maybe you shouldn't take on this job yourself. Why do you want to use both browns? If you really want to use this cable then just leave one brown as a spare. Where do you intend to get a neutral from because it doesn't sound like there is one at the switch if there are only 2 cores there. It is not good practice to have neutrals at switches anyway.


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    #4
    daithi1988
    Registered Users Posts: 5 ✭daithi1988


    aido79 wrote: »
    If you don't understand basic switching then maybe you shouldn't take on this job yourself. Why do you want to use both browns? If you really want to use this cable then just leave one brown as a spare. Where do you intend to get a neutral from because it doesn't sound like there is one at the switch if there are only 2 cores there. It is not good practice to have neutrals at switches anyway.

    It was the strappers that had me confused, I didn't know there was another switch for the light which I now do know.

    I'm just gonna run the cable from switch to light, leave one brown spare and run a neutral to the nearest light in the ceiling area.

    It's only a temp job as the whole thing is coming out in the future anyway.

    Thanks for the reply 😀


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    #5
    aido79
    Registered Users Posts: 5,374 ✭✭✭aido79


    daithi1988 wrote: »
    It was the strappers that had me confused, I didn't know there was another switch for the light which I now do know.

    I'm just gonna run the cable from switch to light, leave one brown spare and run a neutral to the nearest light in the ceiling area.

    It's only a temp job as the whole thing is coming out in the future anyway.

    Thanks for the reply 😀

    You're welcome. If there are only 2 cores at the switch then there are no strappers at the switch.


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