So it's been punted off the list of things to do today owing to me not
having the bits.

Here's the situation - appreciate some advice. I'm sure I know how to
solve this - but would welcome input on the correctness of my
solution.

Wanting to fit a ceiling mounted nice chroime light to fit in with the
bathroom. This makes provision for 1* cable for each of LNE - not
much room for anything other than 1 wire.

Existing is ceiling mounted normal unit with tmerinals for commoning
up elemnts of lighting cct.

This one has 3 common lives, 2 common earths and what would appear
from it's marking - and testing with a meter to be a switched live.

Cables are freely accessible from the roofspace.

My money is on me cutting the power, marking each wire, and pulling
back into the roofspace. Securely attaching to one fo the joists a
normal electical join box, and commoning up the lives neutrals and
earths there - then drop a single run down.

I've got some normal round 20/30a joint boxes, but it seems a bit of a
dodgy way to do this - don't doubt that it will work - just I've got
this feeling that I could be doing this another way/better way.

Anyone got any advice?

Cheers
Dan.

"Dan delaMare-Lyon" wrote in message
news
So it's been punted off the list of things to do today owing to me not
having the bits.

Here's the situation - appreciate some advice. I'm sure I know how to
solve this - but would welcome input on the correctness of my
solution.

Wanting to fit a ceiling mounted nice chroime light to fit in with the
bathroom. This makes provision for 1* cable for each of LNE - not
much room for anything other than 1 wire.

Existing is ceiling mounted normal unit with tmerinals for commoning
up elemnts of lighting cct.

This one has 3 common lives, 2 common earths and what would appear
from it's marking - and testing with a meter to be a switched live.

If there isn't a typo in the above something doesn't add up, please go and
re check (so far you make no mention of a neutral return) !


Cables are freely accessible from the roofspace.

My money is on me cutting the power, marking each wire, and pulling
back into the roofspace. Securely attaching to one fo the joists a
normal electical join box, and commoning up the lives neutrals and
earths there - then drop a single run down.

I've got some normal round 20/30a joint boxes, but it seems a bit of a
dodgy way to do this - don't doubt that it will work - just I've got
this feeling that I could be doing this another way/better way.

Most wiring for lighting will require a joint box with 4 terminals

1 live feed / live loops together with feed to switch.
2 return from switch together with feed to light unit.
3 neutral loops and return from light unit.
4 Earth loops

T1 switch
Live---------------o-----------------------o/ o----to T2
loops________/

T2 Light unit
from switch-----o-----------------[ ]--------to T3
0

T3
from light----------o---------nuetral return to CU
\_______neutral loops

Earth wire T4
from light----------o---------to CU
\_____Earth loops

On Sun, 05 Sep 2004 08:41:57 GMT, Dan delaMare-Lyon wrote:

My money is on me cutting the power, marking each wire, and pulling
back into the roofspace. Securely attaching to one fo the joists a
normal electical join box, and commoning up the lives neutrals and
earths there - then drop a single run down.

Well connecting all lives, neutrals and earths isn't quite what you
want to do but I'm sure you didn't really mean what you wrote. B-)

I've got some normal round 20/30a joint boxes, but it seems a bit of
a dodgy way to do this - don't doubt that it will work - just I've
got this feeling that I could be doing this another way/better way.

As there is "access" the normal joint box seems ideal. Provided it has
enough terminals, you need 4, L N E and SwL. At least it's better than
the instructions that came with a fitting I just bought. Connect the
wires into the supplied "chocolate block" terminal strip, wrap it with
two layers of insulating tape and poke it up into the void....

--
Cheers
Dave. pam is missing e-mail

On 2004-09-05, :::Jerry:::: wrote:

This one has 3 common lives, 2 common earths and what would appear
from it's marking - and testing with a meter to be a switched live.

If there isn't a typo in the above something doesn't add up, please go and
re check (so far you make no mention of a neutral return) !

Oh yes - and 3 neutrals - knew I missed something

Cables are freely accessible from the roofspace.

My money is on me cutting the power, marking each wire, and pulling
back into the roofspace. Securely attaching to one fo the joists a
normal electical join box, and commoning up the lives neutrals and
earths there - then drop a single run down.

I've got some normal round 20/30a joint boxes, but it seems a bit of a
dodgy way to do this - don't doubt that it will work - just I've got
this feeling that I could be doing this another way/better way.

On 2004-09-05, Dave Liquorice wrote:

Well connecting all lives, neutrals and earths isn't quite what you
want to do but I'm sure you didn't really mean what you wrote. B-)

No - it's sunday - not very literate on a sunday as I proved.

As there is "access" the normal joint box seems ideal. Provided it has
enough terminals, you need 4, L N E and SwL. At least it's better than
the instructions that came with a fitting I just bought. Connect the
wires into the supplied "chocolate block" terminal strip, wrap it with
two layers of insulating tape and poke it up into the void....

K cool - I've got one in the tool box I now discover. What would be
nicer would be a "chocolate block" type bar that I could wire into
like in the light fitting that's there at the moment. Why do these
fancy lights make no provision for the fact they might be in the
"middle" of a lighting cct?

Cheers
Dan.

Dan delaMare-Lyon wrote:

.................................................. . Why do these
fancy lights make no provision for the fact they might be in the
"middle" of a lighting cct?

'Cos over on the Continent, the convention seems to be to wire radially
to each lighting point, with a little round box (if you're lucky) for
the cable to poke out of. Loop-in wiring is a Britisher foible, and the
world of global mass manufacturing (on which IKEA and their ilk rely)
means a few pennies saved in material costs, and most of all reducing
the number of variants of a product down to 1 if poss, and if not to 1
core unit and "outboard" country/region-specific fitments, is The Way To Go.

In some cases - not for a fancy-pants living-room-showpiece, mind - it
can look reasonable (and is safe and Regs-compliant, xpt in a bathroom
within ?Zone 1&2? where access-to-terminals-without-a-tool arguments may
apply) - to leave the existing ceiling rose in place, fit the fancy
Euro-fitting to the ceiling close by (watch those mounting screws in
relation to the likely cable run ;-) and run a short length of flex out
of the rose and into the fitting; when I've done this I've preferred
heat-resistant flex to standard PVC. Like I say, not wildly pretty, but
quite reasonable in some situations. You can always tell yourself it's
"for now", while you "test" whether the light cast is really suitable,
and that you'll tart it up with the
junction-box-in-more-or-less-accessable-place when you next redecorate
or otherwise make use of one of those rare circular tuits...