Help with bedroom light and dimmer, please...

[Kingbroady]

I cannot afford an electrician therefore I am having a go at my bedroom light myself.

The problem is that there are 3 cables where the old light was, therefore 3 x red legs and 3 x black as well as the earths.

The light fixture I have has a connection for L, N and Earth.

Now I understand that these are looped together for all of the upstairs lights but how do I connect it to my light, please?

I connected all of the reds together in L and all of the blacks together in N. When I turned the power back on at the DC the light was on but when I pressed the dimmer off it sounded to 'blow' and I could smell burning. The dimmer is a Crabtree one. I connected the black to the L1 and the red to arrow and squiggle.

Can someone please help me with this.

I have just started a part-time course to train to be an electrician so believe that this is a good way to learn.

 

[marty4]

Hi, If you can find out what cable is going to your switch from the ceiling rose. Your L(red) is your loop in, which go together with your other lives and your N(black) is your switch wire(should have red tape on it or be marked in some way, this doesnt go with your other N's as this is your switched live....

 

[Smugley]

Kingbroady, sounds like you have placed the dimmer without a load across the L-N of the whole lighting circuit. The dimmer should be in series with the light (or several lights in parallel). In other words, at your ceiling rose, you have one L-N-E feed in and one L-N-E feed out. Then you have the switch wire which should go from L down to the switch and back up to a separate Switched Live terminal. The 2 wires from the lamp itself are connected to the Neutral terminal and Switched Live terminal.