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I want to wire up a hanging lamp to the ceiling socket and it's turned out to be a lot more complicated than the live/neutral wire combo I'm used to. It looks like someone ran the power to two rooms through this socket and chopped all the wires in half - so messing with it means wall sockets stop working. Would really appreciate some advice on how to approach this, think I opened a can of worms. Old apartment building in Northern Europe, 230v. This is the ceiling socket: 8 wires total. The 3 wires with red tape were bundled together, and the cables are black. The 3 wires with yellow tape were also bundled together and the cables are green, underneath a thick layer of paint and crap. The top left wire is sheathed in brown fabric, and the top right wire is also green. These colors don't match up to code, although perhaps they did back in the 70's. All wall sockets in that room and the adjoining one lose power when the cables are disconnected, as in the picture. Connecting all the red labelled wires together and separately, all the yellow labelled wires together, restores power. Goals: Don't start a fire Be able to turn on the lamp from the wall switch. Keep the wall sockets working. E: I tried a bunch of different wire combinations at first, to get the hanging lamp powered. Nothing worked, I discovered that wall sockets were also losing power, and then decided that this needed a more systematic approach Fruits of the sea fucked around with this message at 18:09 on Apr 12, 2024 |
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Apr 12, 2024 17:57
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No multimeter unfortunately. Just looked up switch loops. If I understand correctly, that consists of running a hot wire to the light fixture and then back to the light switch? And they can get more elaborate than that if more light fixtures or switches are in play? That could explain a lot.
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Apr 12, 2024 18:50
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Jabronie posted:The power for lighting should be coming from your breaker or fuse directly to the switch device. The switch leg comes from the switch device to the lights in that room. Qwijib0 posted:Yep. if your wiring is like mine, in a 50s house, then the ceiling box was used as the junction to power the whole room, so you've got one pair that are the incoming power, a pair that go to the outlets, a pair that go on to other rooms, and then the switch loop, a pair of wires one of which will connect to the hot bundle in the ceiling, go down to the switch, and then the other half of that pair is connected to the hot side of the light fixture. The neutral from the fixture would just be bundled in with all the other neutrals in the box. A multi meter will be useful for sorting it all out. Thanks! and thanks to Motronic as well.  This is a picture of the wiring reassembled into what I am 75% sure was the original configuration. All wall plugs working as they did before. Very much regretting my initial assumption that it was just a bunch of L and N wires plus ground. Does risk of damage to equipment mean I should hold off on experimenting further without some sort of device to check what has power? Is there a chance that I have already damaged something? Is there a resource y'all would recommend for a newcomer to learn how switch loops work? I've found a mix of technical explanations and AI-written articles (which should be loving illegal when dealing with wiring, jesus christ). Conisdering getting an electrician in to look at it. We can't really afford it after a hefty bill for the last visit to install some new plugs and circuit for a washing machine, and I don't mind buying a cheapish multimeter. OTOH further damage or fire risk are a more important consideration if this is beyond layman's capabilities Fruits of the sea fucked around with this message at 19:46 on Apr 12, 2024 |
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Apr 12, 2024 19:38
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Ahh yeah, that lines up with what I was thinking. So 3 separate loops would equate to 6 wires, then the other 2 are ground and neutral? No box or sheathing, the wires were just freeballing out of the ceiling with some crusty old connectors that I have replaced, as seen in the last picture Borrowing a multimeter tomorrow evening! Fruits of the sea fucked around with this message at 19:20 on Apr 13, 2024 |
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Apr 13, 2024 19:17
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Qwijib0 posted:This is a basic switch loop: Right, so took me a while to figure out the multimeter and find time to play with what I now know is called the "ceiling rose". Thanks to this video, I was able to establish which pair is in continuity when the light switch is flipped on. But just bundling those together still leaves all the sockets in the room and adjoining room without power. What's the next step? Should I flip the breaker on and figure out which wires are supplying power? Fruits of the sea fucked around with this message at 17:57 on Apr 22, 2024 |
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Apr 22, 2024 17:54
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