Rope light wiring help

AV Happy · 11-09-2009, 7:55 AM

Having seen several fantastic installations in the gallery which include rope lighting it got me thinking about using an old set of rope lights i have in the garage. unfortunately they have an inline controller for different themes ie. flashing, dimming etc. you can set them to continuous but everytime they are turned off and back on the default is flashing. I have cut out the control unit ( the lights are 230v its not a transformer ) and have 3 wires, brown, blue and black. So i wired the usual, Brown to fuse, blue to neutral and left the black disconnected and alternative led's came on continuous. then i tried the black in with the neutral at the same time thinking this would illuminate the missing LED's it did but the origional ones went out so still only half light.
I dont want to just keep switching wires incase i blow something. can anyone help with how to wire it so they all come on at the same time continuously.

neilball · 11-09-2009, 8:56 AM

Just to confirm, first you wired the brown wire as live and boue as neytral and half the lights came on. You then disconeected the brown wire and connected the black wire to live leaving blue as neutral and the other half lit up. In that case it sounds like both brown & black need to be connected to live to make it all light up.

AV Happy · 11-09-2009, 9:05 AM

No,
first attempt: brown to live, blue to neutral, black disconnected result- half lights came on
Second attempt: brown to live, blue and black to neutral result- the other half came on and the first half went off.

I assumed it would be a common fused live to both sets and blu and black being traditional neutral colours both went to neutral ( although being bashed out in their millions in Hong Kong who knows the colours could mean diddly squat )

I know its a long shot but i wondered if someone else had done the same thing and solved it.

neilball · 11-09-2009, 10:41 AM

Ok, but brown, black & grey are now phase colours with blue being neutral - colours were harmonised across the EU in 2006 and now match cable colours used in flex. This could mean that both the brown and black cables are live connections with a shared neutral which would allow easy control of alternate sets of lamps in the rope as part of the controller lighting effects.

AV Happy · 11-09-2009, 10:49 AM

OK cheers Neil i'll try this tonight, brown and black to live and blue to neutral
I'll let you know how i get on

AV Happy · 11-09-2009, 12:35 PM

Sorted, went home at lunch time and experimented.
Black to live, brown and blue to neutral

Thanks chris