Please help! Emergency wiring

[tommydale88]

hey people!
ive housed bashed for 2 years and now now going into commercial, i start tomorrow on emergency lighting so need to know how these things are wired because i know theeres different ways of doing it?
am i right in thinking that to incoporate the key switch into it its basically using a normal switch, but surely if u only want half the lights emergency then your going to have for examply around 4/5 switch lines? someone please help a novice out!

 

[tigerpaul]

Say you've got a room with 4 luminaires controlled by one 1 way switch at the door.

You change the 1 gang 1way into a 2 gang with one 1 way and one key switch.
You put the feed into the key switch common.
Your permanent live comes off the other side of the key switch up to the perm live connection in the light.
Your loop feed across to the normal switch comes out of the same connection as the perm live.
Your switch live comes off the 1 way like normal up to the light.

Therefore when you break the key switch, you also kill the switch live, which makes it easier to see if the emergency light is functioning properly.

Some people bring the loop feed for the 1 way, off of the live side of the key switch, but this makes it a bit more difficult to see the emergency light functioning.

 

[tommydale88]

and i take it block the neutrals and earths?

what about when theres half emergency lights and half normal? do u share the mcb or is there a way of coming off a normal light to a emergency?

 

[tigerpaul]

for emergency lighting, basically, the E light requires 2 switch lives, one normal one like you have at any light fitting, and one permanent live which is broken by the key switch when you want to simulate a power cut.

normally the permanent live is kept on to keep the battery charged up. The neon indicator will show you when the permanent live is on.

Neutrals and Earths are just the same as normal.

You cant come off a normal light to an emergency unless there is a permanent live connection in the normal light (like in a ceiling rose).

 

[tommydale88]

cheers pal, makes sense now ur a diamond

 

[flip73]

tigers covered both methods for you but just ask the lads on site which method they prefer,like tiger said some say kill all the lights supply so you can see them working better and check the light levels,but your supposed to test em lights every 3 months and leave them off for 3 hrs to check they function for the intended time.in a fully working building you couldnt ditch the lights for 3 hrs thats why others only ditch thesupply to the em side leaving the rest of the lights functioning normally

 

[wattsup]

You should only kill el with lights on a said circuit. You cannot go round testing el and kill all lights, that is unpractical. Sometimes a fire officer may want to kill all power and see light levels, that is understandable but they will always ask when it is good time to do the test. Normally they will just check at a keyswitch, the switch should only operate el not a whole lighting circuit. Each el lighting circuit should be local to the same regular lighting circuit. A savvy fire officer will knock the breaker and see what goes off, and come on. Whatever method you choose is ok and will pass (assuming power failure) but to do it correctly the line of a complete lighting circuit should not be interupted via a key switch, its just bad practice, cheap and nasty. (so they tell me)

In other words el can be tested without cutting main lighting, it can be a pain to wire but that's how it should be done. My last few jobs in the spec have specified this method.

I can't honnestly see the point, other than test procedure...maybe elf and safety have overcome again...err its gone dark and people fall downstairs and sue the council because of a 'test'

 

[markyarm2]

How would you incorporate a PIR into this scenario??