Unintended (lighting) consequences!

Itchyness

I moved into a new house last year.

In my hallway there are 6 downlighters, a pendant light in the downstairs bathroom and the outside light in the porch. All were working fine.

The bathroom light operates on a single switch and the rest off a three-switch panel.

I replaced two kitchen lights, swapped ceiling pendants (no modifications, I literally took down the rose and replaced the fitting) and then madness happened!

The hallway and bathroom lights now turn on together and shimmer! If I turn on the porch light , it and half the hallway lights go strobe! What the hell is going on?!

meercat

Depending on what way you’re pendants we’re wired,then it’s possible you’ve reconnected the wires incorrectly. Either the neutral cables aren’t all connected or the loop feed live wires aren’t connected.
Go back and check (photos would be handy to identify)

Itchyness

meercat wrote: »

Depending on what way you’re pendants we’re wired,then it’s possible you’ve reconnected the wires incorrectly. Either the neutral cables aren’t all connected or the loop feed live wires aren’t connected.
Go back and check (photos would be handy to identify)

Meercat, thanks for the reply. Yeah I can get a more detailed photo but the main fitting had three neutral and two live. I just rejoined them together though? These pendants are working fine! The other pendant had a similar set up but I did the same thing again.

meercat

Itchyness wrote: »

Meercat, thanks for the reply. Yeah I can get a more detailed photo but the main fitting had three neutral and two live. I just rejoined them together though? These pendants are working fine! The other pendant had a similar set up but I did the same thing again.

Can you put the pendants back up to see if the issue is resolved. Then put one fitting up and check if everything is still ok. Then fit the second one

Itchyness

meercat wrote: »

Can you put the pendants back up to see if the issue is resolved. Then put one fitting up and check if everything is still ok. Then fit the second one

So in attempting to check this I isolated the power to the pendant lights. However I then checked the hallway and outside light and the problem is persists so in fact I don't think its the pendant lights at all?

Also now that I have taken down the pendant light I have seen that my wireing is one 3 core , 2single neutral wires and a brown and Earth cable. Is it correct to wire them up as it was in my previous picture?

Itchyness

Itchyness wrote: »

So in attempting to check this I isolated the power to the pendant lights. However I then checked the hallway and outside light and the problem is persists so in fact I don't think its the pendant lights at all?

Also now that I have taken down the pendant light I have seen that my wireing is one 3 core , 2single neutral wires and a brown and Earth cable. Is it correct to wire them up as it was in my previous picture?

So it seems the kitchen pendant lights have nothing to do with the hallway light so, looks like its on a different loop. So I put it back together and its working fine as before.

It seems the problem is located in the hallway. I attached a picture of the wiring behind the three-switch panel that controls these lights and everything seems to be in order. There are three switches, 1-3 from left to right.
1: Two-way switch controlling the landing light. This is working fine no problem.
2: Two-way switch controlling the hall way lights, 6 down-lighters. When I turn this on only three of the six light.
3: One-way switch controlling the porch light. When I turn this on, the porch lights and all six hallway lights flash like a strobe!

Now in addition to this switch there is a downstairs bathroom controlled by a single switch. When I turn this on, the bathroom light AND all 6 hall way lights turn on!?

So the wiring in the back of the main switch seems in order, I dont know if you can see anything obvious?

I had a guy fitting a house alarm awhile back so I dont know if he snagged anything or something like that? I dont see how there could be loose connections anywhere, all of this was working fine one day and not the next!

alan4cult

By any chance is there a dimmer on the circuit anywhere, either in 2 way switching or as an intermediate?
The strobing is caused by either a dimmer with an LED or if there is no dimmer it's possible that a neutral is loose within a circuit.