2 gang dimmer

philbo · Jul 4, 2011

The problem i am facing is mainly safety related.

I have 2 rooms working off one 2 gang standard light fitting.I want to install a 2 gang dimmer.

Ok so i removed existing front plate off light fitting. 2 earth leads correctly attached to backplate.all four wires are brown with 2 going to each gang in L1 and L2.

So I open dimmer and the fitting screws to each gang are (wavyline/arrow and L1, L2 )

The wiring is very easily disginguishable for each light...so do I fit each light to the corresponding L1 L2 of the dimmer or place one of the wires into (wavyline/arow ) and one to L1.

I say its a safety issue as the children will use the light and i want it wired correct.

Sparky Ninja · Jul 4, 2011

Are you sure they were originally going into L1 and L2?

Knobhead · Jul 4, 2011

Send a picture, it would help.

telectrix · Jul 4, 2011

some makes of switch have the terminals labelled as L1 , L2 and L3 instead of C , L1 and L2. you need to wire the feed live into wavy line , and the switched lives into the L1's.

Sparky Ninja · Jul 4, 2011

telectrix said:
some makes of switch have the terminals labelled as L1 , L2 and L3 instead of C , L1 and L2. you need to wire the feed live into wavy line , and the switched lives into the L1's.

That's kinda where I was heading with it but he logged off.

Expert lingo there mate.

ian.settle1 · Jul 4, 2011

Tony said:
Send a picture, it would help.

A larger font size would be help for mine and other peoples eye sight:ack2:

Des 56 · Jul 4, 2011

[QUOTE=ian.settle1;318448]A larger font size would be help for mine and other peoples eye sight:ack2:[/QUOTE]

I agree

philbo · Jul 5, 2011

yes...the original lightfitting is standard....double switch.

controls both room lights

consists of 4 x brown wires....2 earths going to backbox.The isolation sleeves are visible so can distinguish each light source.The brown wires from each go into L1 & L2 for each gang.

it's the dimmer that is throwing me off....wavyline/arrow (do we have a name for this please) and L1 L2....

I can understand from above the live goes to wavy/arrow in dimmer but which one is the problem? do i place the original wiring from L1 into this ?

here are pictures

original (2xbrown to L1.....2xbrown to L2...L3 on both gangs is not used)

dimmer

Sparky Ninja · Jul 5, 2011

Follow the advice telectrix gave.

Connect the original L1's to the wavy line, and the original L2's to the new L1's. Make sure it's fully isolated when you do this.