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[mountainmj]

I have just gone to change a light fitting. After opening it up I have found a whole mess of wires. The previous light fitting was a 3 way spot light and I want to replace it for a standard hanging light.

I was just going to take the live, neutral, and earth wires and switch them to the new fitting but as I was doing this a few of the connectors had come loose and fell off and now I have a whole load of wires and I don't know how to connect them.

I have attached a photo of what I am left with. I've numbered the wires from 1 to 7

1 - Earth - 2 naked wires going from the earth wire to the grey wires where 2 and 3; and 6 and 7 come from
2 - Black
3 - Red
4 - Red - At the top of 4 and 5 there is a naked wire also coming out of the main grey wire
5 - Brown coming out of a black - At the top of 4 and 5 there is a naked wire also coming out of the main grey wire
6 - Black
7 - Red

The first picture is of the old fitting. The second is the new fitting. The third is the connectors that fell off. And the fourth picture is the wires coming from the ceiling.

Could someone please tell me how I should connect these up? My gut feeling is that the 3 red wires (3,4,7) should be joined together and go to the live connection on the light fitting, the 3 black wires should be connected together and go to the neutral connection on the light fitting and the 3 naked wires should be connected together and insulted and then go to the earth on the light fitting.

Many thanks in advance for any advice given.

[Mr White]

If you did as you suggest (All reds together and all blacks together) It will go BANG!

What you have is quite normal (It's called the 3 plate system)
You have:
One supply cable
One to the next light cable
One to the switch cable

The 3 reds should be connected together, but NOT connected to the light.
TWO of the blacks should be connected together and to the neutral of the light. The remaining black goes to the LIVE of the light (It is the switched live)

The 3 bare wires should be sleeved and all connected to the earth.

The question is which two blacks should be connected together, without being able to test, the answer is no idea. But as I said get it wrong and it will go BANG. Does one of the blacks have red tape or sleeving on it? if it does it is the other two blacks you connect together.

[mountainmj]

Thank you. I figured it out. It all works as expected now. Cheers