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[sarahpr]

I posted this message a wekk ago - it's had 250 hits, but no one has offered any advise. Can anyone offer any suggestions?

Can someone please help.

I am trying to fit a new ceiling light to my existing wiring. Before I disconnected the old light i took a picture of the set up. It had three red wires grouped together, three earch wires together, two black wires and one blue connected to the blue wires of the light fitting and a yellow wire connected to the brown wires of the light fitting.

I now know that i have been dealing with a three core and earth wire, but i still can't get the light to work!

I have tried connecting blk, blk and blue to the blue of the light and brown of the light to yellow - this doesn't work. If i connect brown to the three reds the light stays on!

What should i do with the yellow wire? should i group it with the reds and try and work out which of the black wires is a switch or am i likely to do myself an injury!

Please help!!!

[thedoctor]

No one has helped for a couple of reasons. Firstly, the title of your post "can anyone help" gives no indication as to the problem at all and could just as easily be posted in the plastering section. Try and title the question you have with an appropriate heading and any electricians passing by will see that you have a "specific" problem. Secondly, the yellow wire indicates your light is switched from two switches (Two way switching) and this can be done in a coupole of ways. From you description it is unclear as to how the circuit is put together and therefore its too dangerous to put ourselves on the spot to tell you waht to do. If you make the wrong connections and burn the house down it must be your responsibility. Look at our projects section as advised and check the projects on replacing a light fitting and two way switching. There are enough electrical projects there for you to be able to work it out
yourself and if you cannot we strongly suggest you get an electrician. Electricity is not something you can just experiment with by joining a few wires together just to see what happens. The fuses may trip a few times to keep you safe but this does not mean that the wire insulation cover is not being melted slowly when the circuit is shorted. A burned insulation cover is vulnerable and the wire becomes hot. Hot wires are not good news and house fires are worse.

[kbrownie]

Hi sarahpr,
The doc is right there is more than one way this circuits can be wired, as there is a possibility that someone may give you the wrong combination to terminate cables and it may have been incorrectly wired in the first place. That's why your post may have been avioded. It's the yellow and blue cables that's the cause of the confusion they belong somewhere else. Have a look inside the two switches connected to this fitting and give detail of what you see (ie Common connected to yellow in both, 2 reds to L1 in one (call it X) and 1 red to L1 in the other (Call it Y) Black and a Blue to L2 in (x) and just Blue to L2 in (y). etc... as much info as possible
Then we will see if it can get sorted out for you, remember to isolate and be safe.
Kind Regards
KB

[fridspark]

my advice to you would be to get a qualified electrician to sort out your problem. it's all well and good talking about different colours of cables but without standing there with some text equipment to trace cables etc it's hard.
Put your hand in your pocket and swallow some pride.