Dimmer - light in another room turns it off - help!

[santorium]

Hi all,

I'm hoping someone can point me in the right direction on a problem that I have with some new dimmers at home.

Bit of background:

House has just been fully re-wired
All sockets and switches replaced
Ring mains all round for lighting circuit
Have wickes remote control dimmers in bedrooms and dining room

Here's my problem: My upstairs bathroom is next to the master bedroom. When I turn off the light (using the pull cord) it causes the dimmer to reset and turn itself off. It doesn't do it every time either (though enough to be a regular occurance).

The same happens with the dining room (which is also next to a downstairs cloakroom with pull cord).

Electrician has been to look at it, but can't figure out what's wrong. Have tried replacing the pull cord incase an issue there, but no joy. All bulbs are standard bulbs and are appropriate wattage, so no issues there either.

Has anyone got any thoughts / insights / obvious solutions?

Thanks in advance,

S

 

[mickys86]

When the dimmer resets. Does it lose power all together?

Sounds like the feed is being switched which means its wired wrong - but cant imagine a competent electrician would not be able to find that fault

 

[Paul.M]

Sounds like its been wired up wrong, get your electrician back to polarity test the full circuit because a small mistake has been made going by your description.

It could be the remote dimmers that have been fed from the switch wire from the pullcord? Try a normal plate switch? Could be a number of things, get him back in to rectify.

 

[Paul.M]

MMicky beat me to it .

 

[malcolmsanford]

You said you have your lighting on a "ring main" I'm going to assume it is not a ring but a normal radial circuit, but strange you should use that term.

Check you fuse board and see if you have what is normally 2 lighting circuits one marked upstairs and one marked downstairs.

I'm not being derogatory here but let us say Wickes are not renowned for quality and I think that you pull switches are causing an inductive surge which is affecting the remote control dimmers. and the reason the down stairs pull light is not affecting the upstairs bedroom lights is because they are on separate circuits.

The easiest thing in my mind would be to get a better remote operated dimmer, get one and try it. If as I think it will work then change the other.

Another way that could work, would be to put a snubber, you can goolge it, on either the dimmer or the pull cord lights. These are cheaper, but you would need to have an electrician install them, so may work out more expensive

Another less likely impossibility is that there is something in the home that is very close in the frequency band of your dimmer switches, and the inductance in the lights and perhaps the operation of this other piece of equipment being used, and the pull light being activate is affecting the switch

 

[mickys86]

MMicky beat me to it .

I never win! Lol

 

[santorium]

The dimmer has an led on it. Red when the light is turned on; green when the light is off.

The LED flashes red repeatedly when it resets. Only ways to turn the light back on are:

- push both buttons on the dimmer together - this stops the flashing and lets me turn back on
- remove and replace the bulb - same effect as above
- flip the switch for the circuit on the consumer unit

 

[santorium]

Might be being dumb here, but had assumed that wired up wrong would produce the effect every time, which it doesn't?

 

[santorium]

Thanks Malcolm, some answers:

You said you have your lighting on a "ring main" I'm going to assume it is not a ring but a normal radial circuit, but strange you should use that term. - my bad, it's just the phrase I heard used.

Check you fuse board and see if you have what is normally 2 lighting circuits one marked upstairs and one marked downstairs.

>Yep, have two separate circuits.

I'm not being derogatory here but let us say Wickes are not renowned for quality and I think that you pull switches are causing an inductive surge which is affecting the remote control dimmers. and the reason the down stairs pull light is not affecting the upstairs bedroom lights is because they are on separate circuits.

> Understand your point re: hardware, but a full replacement means every switch and socket in the house - not ideal.
> The downstairs cloakroom pull cord turns off the dimmer in the dining room - sorry for any confusion there. What I was trying to get across is that the issue doesn't happen every time and is it happens in the same way on both the upstairs and downstairs circuit, it doesn't seem likely that I have a "dodgy" dimmer

The easiest thing in my mind would be to get a better remote operated dimmer, get one and try it. If as I think it will work then change the other.

Another way that could work, would be to put a snubber, you can goolge it, on either the dimmer or the pull cord lights. These are cheaper, but you would need to have an electrician install them, so may work out more expensive

> I'll look into this, thanks!

Another less likely impossibility is that there is something in the home that is very close in the frequency band of your dimmer switches, and the inductance in the lights and perhaps the operation of this other piece of equipment being used, and the pull light being activate is affecting the switch

> I did wonder that, even if the light going off mimics the remote control code somehow - didn't seem that likely to me though?

 

[malcolmsanford]

I was not advocating changing your pull switch and other accessories, but a dimmer unit. As said Wickes are not the greatest quality, so perhaps something like a varilight one, widely available.

Also something else you might want to look at is the back box in the wall. These dimmer create quite a lot of heat and if there is a shallow box, say 25mm you can find they will over heat and cause problems like this, especially if they have been on for a few hours.

There are several things you can try and do, and things like this is pure guess work on a forum, but I hope that it at least points you in the right direction

 

[Engineer54]

Can't fault your guesswork on this one Malc!! Though not really up on Wicks dimmers as to whether they are good or not, your suggestion on the dimmers being the cause, was my initial thoughts as well, on reading the OP problem description....

 

[danzor]

Do the dimmers and remotes have dip switches on them?

 

[santorium]

I was not advocating changing your pull switch and other accessories, but a dimmer unit. As said Wickes are not the greatest quality, so perhaps something like a varilight one, widely available.

Also something else you might want to look at is the back box in the wall. These dimmer create quite a lot of heat and if there is a shallow box, say 25mm you can find they will over heat and cause problems like this, especially if they have been on for a few hours.

There are several things you can try and do, and things like this is pure guess work on a forum, but I hope that it at least points you in the right direction

Thanks Malcolm,

This is all very helpful. Will check on the back box, but the issue happens when the pull cords are used (to turn a light off, never when turning it on) and aren't related to the length of time that the dimmer has been active for (it can happen after two minutes), so I'd kinda ruled out the heat thing.

re: replacing all the fittings - I think I would need to as, aside from the pull cords, every socket and light switch in the house is from the same range (black nickel, flush plates) which is what I wanted to achieve!

 

[santorium]

Hi Danzor,

Nope, no dip switches