Missing switching live
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tomcatalley
Labourer
Labourer
Posts: 1
Joined: Wed Mar 14, 2012 4:06 pm

Missing switching live

by tomcatalley » Wed Mar 14, 2012 4:16 pm

Everything was working, Took off the old light, which was not one that came with the house, someone had installed a halogen spotlamp array, which was working, but ugly, so i took it off and whoever installed it was clearly an idiot, after cleaning up the vast mess inside (impossible to mark anything as everything was hidden under 15 layers of insulating tape) i realized there was no switching live marked. so i separated the three grey cables, each with Red, Black And Green coming out.

pulled out the multimeter, set it to Ohm, black cable in COM, red cable in V Ohm.

Grey Cable one Red and Black registers 0 resistance regardless of whether the switch is on or not
Grey Cable two Red and Black registers 1 resistance regardless of whether the switch is on or not
Grey Cable three Red and Black registers 1 resistance regardless of whether the switch is on or not

what am i doing wrong?

ericmark
Project Manager
Project Manager
Posts: 2870
Joined: Fri Oct 02, 2009 9:49 pm
Location: Llanfair Caereinion, Mid Wales.

Re: Missing switching live

by ericmark » Thu Mar 15, 2012 9:41 am

I would tend to look at switch to see what colours are used. Not all houses daisy chain the supply through the ceiling roses although that is most common method.

Also sometimes electricians will run two cables rather than run three core so you may find two cables going to switch.

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