Reviving an old thread to get advice from sifus.......

I jut bought bout 3 dozen lights for new house, mostly ceiling mounted led panels.

The shop's installer say standard rate is RM15 to install one light.

I reckon each job will require : 2 screws to fit light to ceiling, connect 2 wires, pop the cover back.

Most of the ceiling is plaster ceiling board. Drilling not a problem.
So I am thinking to DIY myself.


Before I fried myself or burn a row of houses, can sifus check if I got the theory part right :

Most of my lighting points like this :



Q1
The middle wire can be red, yellow or blue. I think this is the wireman's way to identify each 'loop'
Correct?

Q2
So the Black = Neutral; Red/Yellow/Blue = Live; Green is Earth.
Correct?




Q3
The LED lights has 2 tiny blue wires. These are to be connected to the Neutral (Black) and Live (R/Y/B)
Which way also OK. Correct?

Q4
No need to use Earth (Green) wire.
Correct ah?

Q5
There are two black and green wires each because of looping. Just leave them alone. Don't pull out.
Correct?

This post has been edited by Fazab: Sep 8 2014, 06:14 PM

Thanks a bundle

Q4 - casing is aluminium I think. All ceiling light, minimum 8 feet high. How to ground it?



That more or less how they look like.

All my life only see terminal blocks everywhere.

The only caps I ever saw is in the Fanco baby fan in my kitchen, made in Singapore.
The wireman who installed the fan didn't know how to use it. In the end change to blocks.

I was going to ask this question.

plaster ceiling guy say can drill, but must find when is the supporting steel bars, and fix the screw thru that.

but he didn't tell me how to find the steel bar from below. I need X-ray eyes.......?

Magnet?

My Indon handyman laugh when I asked him. He said the unit is so light, just use normal screws can. If lazy use double sided tape also can.

I ask him how much he charge to fit a light........he also want RM15.

Indon also expensive oledi.

Done fixing lights. Just sharing silly experiences and thanking the sifus here for their advises, and double check anything I missed.

1. Fix light to plaster ceiling without light dropping

True that plaster ceiling board do not provide enough grip. Before I started, I got a 'competent' installer to fit two lights and I watched him all the way. He just drill and used normal wall plugs. If I pull hard on the light, it moves.....
OK don't pull it then.

I did the rest using a safer but more tiring way
First I try to get to an aluminium bar above the plaster board. Turns out that in most cases the plaster ceiling man will have fixed a bar near the lighting point. If I find it I put at least one screw into the aluminium bar. That gives good hold.

How to find it? First I put middle finger in the wiring hole and feel feel around (OK, don't get naughty thoughts)
If finger not long enough I use a small drill bit and poke around from outside (also no naughty thoughts) to find it.
Then I just patch up the small holes.

If no aluminium bar nearby, I use 'butterfly' wall plugs. This one a bit problem because they are thick and big, have to make a big hole to push it through. Also, the thinnest plug I can find is 10mm thick at the base. If the plaster board is less than 9mm thick, it does not sit flush to the ceiling, but won't come out. So OK. Safe.

But once you put the plug in you can't pull it out. To remove, only way is to push the whole thing in, and patch the big hole.


2. The earth wire.

For small LED lights, casing is plastic, so I no fix the earth wire, just left them in the connector.

For the big ones with aluminium casings, I copycat the installer - remove the green wires from the connector, strip about one inch of tubing from each, twist them together, and join to one of the supporting screws.


3. Wiring the LED lights

This is the part I had the most problem, because the LED wires are b***** tiny.
Quite difficult to get the screw of the connectors to sit on the wires.

End up I bend the tip into a hook, push it in as far as possible, and screw down onto the tubing hard.
So the LED wires will directly contact the house wires on the other side.


4. End results - so far so good

All lights work.

One a bit senget (tip : buy round shape ones, no matter how you mess up, they can't go senget)

Lights secured by butterfly plugs may have a tiny but noticable gap between the base and ceiling if your board is thin.
(tip : find better plugs)


5. Conclusion - maybe I should have just get people to do it........got neckache now.
(Tip : make sure ladder is tall enough, and you don't have weak knees problem)

OK, I got into another silly situation.

Wanted to fit timer and sensor switches to front and back lights before balik kampung long weekend.

But the only wireman who will do this 'small job' failed to turn up - twice.


So for last minute desperate measure, I plan to buy socket timers, plugs, and long wires.

I will fit the wire --> plug --> then plug into timer --> wall socket

Then I will temporarily swap the wires from the lights to the new wires (connect using terminal blocks)

Now the lights will be connected thru socket timers

I think this will work. Is there ANYTHING that I need to be careful of? Overlooked?

Sorry, I DIY a lot, but a bit panciky when come to electric.

The wires will be 10 - 20 feet long. Bankrupt.....