Help with fitting varilight please!

[moony1234]

Hi,

I've fitted switches before but my new house is a bit different...

Screwed the existing switch face off yesterday to find the following going into the back of the switch:



2 Brown cables into "L1"
1 Brown cable into "L2"
Nothing in L3

Then behind the fascia just "sitting" in the switch recess is a terminal block setup as follows:


2 earth into one terminal > Nothing in the other end/connected
2 blue into one terminal > Nothing in the other end/connected...


So i've got my varilight, which is not with me, but I believe it has Load, Slave, something else and earth...

Could someone advise me what needs to go where...

I'm assuming the cables going into the terminal arent doing anything, or because they are in the same terminal is the terminal "connecting" the earths together, and also the blue's together?


Sorry for the questions but anytime i've done this before I had a red, black and earth... nice and simple!

[SeanT]

Are there two lights or one? The most likely thing is that the two browns are the looped through supply, and the single brown is the power to the light. The load of stuff in the terminal block can be left alone, there's only two connections to make to the switch (unless it has a metal faceplate when there should be an earth to the backbox and a little loop through to the plate)

[moony1234]

Hi Sean,

There is just 1 light and 1 switch.

So would the 2 browns go into "load" and the other into "slave" and leave the other empty?

It is metal and has an earth bit on the back of it, can I just take one of the earths out of the terminal or should I get a bit of earth cable and put it in the other end of the terminal then onto the switch?


Thanks!

[moony1234]

Evening bump!

I've had another look at the varilight instructions and it seems to think there should be 1 live and 1 neutral as oppose to 3 live and no neutral which is what I have.... Confusing!

[huwsparky]

Hi mate. Not exactly sure what you are trying to describe here but i would start with the single wire going to the 'load' connection as this is almost certainly the cable going out to the light. If you have a common connection on your new switch then this would be where your other two cables would need to go and kept together as they are now. Turn the power off and give it a go. whatever you do dont mess around with the blue cables in the back of the switch or you may hear a bang when you re-energise the circuit!!!

hope this helps.

[moony1234]

Originally Posted by huwsparky

Hi mate. Not exactly sure what you are trying to describe here but i would start with the single wire going to the 'load' connection as this is almost certainly the cable going out to the light. If you have a common connection on your new switch then this would be where your other two cables would need to go and kept together as they are now. Turn the power off and give it a go. whatever you do dont mess around with the blue cables in the back of the switch or you may hear a bang when you re-energise the circuit!!!

hope this helps.

Even more confusing as there are no blue cables in the back of the switch... they are just in a little terminal pushed into the switch recess in the wall....


Sorry if i'm not describing it well but basically there are [on the back of the CURRENT switch]:

2 brown cables into "L1"
1 brown cable into "L2"
L3 is empty


In ther terminal junction/box there is 2 earths stuck in together and screwed down, in another terminal there is 2 blues stuck in together and screwed down....

[huwsparky]

Its fine that the blue cables are in the back and not actually connected into switch...its very rare that the neutral is connected into the switch itself as its the live that does the switching. If i were you i would turn off the supply and experiment with connecting the new switch making sure that you remember which cables are together and which one is on its own as they will have to go back the same way. Dont be tempted to mess with any of the blue cables behind as you have no need to. Although if its a metal switch you will need to earth it as someone previously said...

[SeanT]

The 2 browns would go into supply / feed / permanent live / however it's labelled. The single brown would go into load. Nothing goes into slave, as you've only got the one dimmer.

You should take a short piece of wire and connect it from the earth terminal in the back of the socket (assuming this is where the earth wires all terminate) to the faceplate. You should never disconnect an existing permanent earth connection to connect it to a faceplate, unless connecting all the earths to the faceplate and the trailing wire back to the box - two reasons - (a) if someone took the faceplate off, they might not realise that they were leaving half the house (including other metal faceplates) unearthed - (b) you'd be relying on the screws between the plate and the backbox for your earth continuity from that switch onwards.... - in fact, reading more into it, your backbox might not be earthed at all, so you might end up with a floating earth somewhere.

Originally Posted by moony1234

Hi Sean,

There is just 1 light and 1 switch.

So would the 2 browns go into "load" and the other into "slave" and leave the other empty?

It is metal and has an earth bit on the back of it, can I just take one of the earths out of the terminal or should I get a bit of earth cable and put it in the other end of the terminal then onto the switch?


Thanks!

[neilball]

Originally Posted by moony1234

Evening bump!

I've had another look at the varilight instructions and it seems to think there should be 1 live and 1 neutral as oppose to 3 live and no neutral which is what I have.... Confusing!

Does the Varilight switch need a neutral connection to work? If it does then you need fit a blue cable from your existing blues in the connector block to the relevent terminal on the Varilight plate.

Then you need to sort out the brown cables - one set will be permanently live comgin from your lighting circuit feed from the consumer unit/fuse board (most probably the 2 browns as other have said). The other brown cable is the switched feed to the light fitting.

I've not seen teh wiring connections for Varilight switches before but most simple units like this have a live terminal (maybe marked L) for the permanent live feed, a load terminal for the cable going to the light fitting, occassionally a neutral terminal, and probably an earth terminal as well. The slave terminal sounds to me like it is used where you have two-way or multi-way switches (i.e. several switches controlling the same light such as a hall, stairs and landing situation).

Can you post a link to any on-line instructions or datasheets for your particular Varilight model?

EDIT - I've just had a quick look at the Varilight website and the remote control/touch range do only require a permanent feed to the L terminal and the live to the fitting connects to the terminal with the arrow (the load). There is no neutral connection on the switch and the slave termnial is only used if/when you have multiple switches controlling the same light.