I’m redoing our kitchen and eventually we will have a central light, recessed spots in the ceiling, under-cabinet lights and also plinth mounted
lighting.
Ideally I would like to fit a 4 gang switch inside the door to control these individually but how is it best to wire these?
I assume I could bring a single live to the switch and loop from this to all the individual switches. I would then need 4 separate switched lines
plus an earth so presumably I’d need cable with 5-cores and an earth but is this available / acceptable.
If it’s OK how would it be best to arrange the neutral / earths to each of the various lights.
John.
I would loop in to each light fitting and then run a switched cable from each fitting to the switch.
Myself, I'd run a twin and earth to feed the switch (live and neutral), use short crosslinks to feed all 4 switches, and run an individual twin
and earth to each light. Link all the neutrals in a connector block.
This work would be notifiable to building control.
Single Red and Earth to the switch from 6 amp MCB, loop to all 4 switches. Earth to the back box.
Single Red and Earth from each switch to each group of lights- Red from switch and earths from back box.
Single black looped around each lighting circuit back to consumer unit neutral.
Personally, I'd put an accessible box in the ceiling, fed with live, neutral and earth by a standard Twin and Earth cable.
I'd feed each light (or set of lights) from the junction box, with one of four standard T&E cables.
I'd then drop the required cables from the junction box to the switch, sleeving all the (non-Earth) cores brown. What you drop is up to you - 4
individual T&Es; three T&Es with two pairs of switches, each fed from the cores of one cable and the returns on the other two; One T&E and
one Three core and Earth cable, with all switches fed from a single core. The last option is the simplest, as it has the fewest earths to try and
terminate in a single terminal and the fewest number of cores filling the back box.
Neutrals shouldn't be present at the switch backbox anyway and using individual T&Es to each light or set of lights means no problems when
redecorating in the future.
When I wired my house I did something similar - although a little more complicated, as I have two separate ceiling lights and two separate wall lights
in a through room, 2-way switched by 4-gang switches at either end of the room. Despite laying them out logically and identically at each end of the
room, it's like a disco in here when my wife wants to turn a light on or off - myself and the kids have no problem!
[Edited on 2/6/15 by SteveWalker]
[Edited on 2/6/15 by SteveWalker]
quote:
Originally posted by owelly
I would loop in to each light fitting and then run a switched cable from each fitting to the switch.
quote:
Originally posted by AntonUK
quote:
Originally posted by owelly
I would loop in to each light fitting and then run a switched cable from each fitting to the switch.
ditto
quote:
Originally posted by big-vee-twin
Single Red and Earth to the switch from 6 amp MCB, loop to all 4 switches. Earth to the back box.
Single Red and Earth from each switch to each group of lights- Red from switch and earths from back box.
Single black looped around each lighting circuit back to consumer unit neutral.