lights not working

[matrix1]

Hi Guys.Hope someone can help.I have a hallway light and a landing light.Downstairs I have a 2 gang 2 way light switch which has 2 common terminals,2 L1 terminals and 2 L2 terminals.Upstairs I have a 1gang 2 way switch with 1 common terminal and 1 L1 and 1 L2 terminal.Wiring is as follows: down stairs 3 red,black and earth wires.Upstairs 2red, 1 black and 2 earth.

I have connected upstairs as follows:L1 black, L2 Red and common Red.

I have connected Downstairs as follows:Common:Black wire.L1 not connected.L2 red with link wire to the other common terminal.L1 red and L2 black.
The hallway light works fine but the landing light will not work from either downstairs or upstairs.HELP!!!!

[John7]

Heres a quick and dirty circuit diagram that may help.

Don't assume that black wires are neutral - commonly with lighting circuits they are used as the live return - they should have red heat shrink on them to signify but they rarely do

[Sonic67]

This might seem a little dangerous but sometimes when I haven't a clue I do this. Turn off power and disconnect everything. Get a mains tester screwdriver or similar. Don't let anyone near switches. Switch on power. Test to see which are live with screwdriver or other test equipment that can test live cables. Find out which actually are live. You shouldn't need to touch them anymore than you have to. Once you are happy what's live switch off power.

Some of your cables will be live all the time some only live when switched.

With landing lights there's different ways of wiring. It may be that a live feed is taken from the hall switch and looped across to the common on the landing switch. Then two wires go upstairs and are connected to L1 and L2. I used to call them strappers. Another live wire then goes from the common of the upstairs switch to the ceiling light.

Note regardless of colours all the wires at light switches will be live (except bare earth wires of course). It may seem that some are coloured black but that's down to the cable that was used. Sparkys only tend to use red/black cable. The black wires should really be covered with red tape to indicate live.

Neutrals are carried around the lights so aren't involved here.

Thing is this isn't the easiest to explain. Look at this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Light_switch

If you look at the second diagram following this text:

By connecting two of these switches together back-to-back, it can be arranged that toggling either switch changes the state of the light from off to on, or on to off:

That's what I think you might have.



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Light_switch