in this video we're going to replace this two
gang dimmer here for one that looks virtually the same but hopefully will work correctly Marcus
has already looked at two gang switches in the previous video and i'll leave a link for that in
the eye above my head we're also going to look at what the wiring method is here the cable colours
and then obviously reconnect the new dimmer but why am i replacing the dimmer it hasn't failed
but i had a bright idea for my mum to change her lamps in her living area from old incandescent
ones because the amount of wattage she was using on those lights was horrendous so i did the
good thing i went out and bought some LED ones however the old resistive dimmer doesn't quite
work it when you dim it down you get a nice flickering of those lights and it's not a flicker
that feels like a warm candle it's one that feels quite annoying when you're sitting watching the
telly so doing the good deed in the first place to replace them for LED lamps has now given
me another good deed i've got to replace the dimmer with one that's designed to dim LED
lights now i could go into lots of details about dimming LEDs but i've done that on my other
YouTube channel eFIXX in the great British dim off so in the description i'll leave a link for
some of those videos and get a little bit more understanding about leading and trailing edge
dimming so we're going to replace this dimmer today the full safe isolation process has
been carried out so we're ready to do the change over the dimmer but we're gonna work out
first of all how the lighting circuit's been wired and hopefully from all the videos i've done on
the two and three plate method you can start identifying what we've got here so just give
you a second to look at what we've got in here in order that you can work it out hopefully the
connector block at the back there which are black conductors which is pre 2004 colour for neutral
go into a connector there so this has taken the feed directly to the switch so we've got a cable
coming in with the permanent line connection which is probably this one here because it's
also got this bridging link that Marcus talked about as well which we're going to have to use
again so that brings in your permanent line a neutral and a circuit protective conductor as
we feed the switch and then we've got a couple of switching line conductors going out for the
two lights in this area along with two neutrals and two CPC's so we've used taking the feed to
the switch in this method and i'm just going to whip out the conductors and have a look
at those and make off the new dimmer so this is the permanent line connection and it's got
that bridging link as well which we're probably going to need in the next one so we're going to
keep that as well so we'll bring that one out and that's my permanent line connection now it
could be that you want to mark or identify that as your permanent line or you might just want
to fold it out of the way so that's my feed into my common and it's going to have to remain into
my common new system and i've got two switching conductors coming out for each of the lights and
they're coming out probably what the class is L1 we have a screwdriver in here just undo that
one so that's a switching line connection and over here we've got another one if i leave
them at the bottom we can see what we've got there so drop those out i'm going to take the link
out as well okay so i need that moving forward this dimmer's been on the wall for 15 years and
i've spent about five minutes i didn't really wrecked it so there's my little bridging link so
we've got our two switching line conductors going out for the lights in the dining and living area
i'm a permanent line coming in which will again go into the common connection of a new dimmer so
on the back of my new two gang dimmer we've got exactly the same arrangement as we're comfortable
we're seeing we've got common L1 and L2 on both permanent lines going to come into common we're
going to use that bridging link to come across to the other common and our switching line conductor
comes out of L1 on both of these dimmers so let's make those connections then just going to back off
the screws i'll start with a common i'm gonna wind that quite a way back it might be a case now of
judging whether you think the terminations here can be screwed into again so if we look
at one of our switching line conductors it's quite fragmented so i'm probably going to
remake off the ends of these conductors again we've seen that on the channel so i'll just cut
away i'll remake off the ends in order that we haven't got that dented copper that could be a
weak area and break when i screw back into it then my two switching lines ready for their
connections now better than what we had before still got plenty of length that's the beauty
of making sure you conduct a reasonable length when you do it the first time around you can
terminate them again but still great length so we've got our commons and our l ones it's not a
two way dimmer so we'd have the L2 if we were two way opening up those terminals don't want them
to drop on the floor hopefully they're captive so there we go so let's drop our
common into one we can see the depth i've got to try and make that bridging link go in
there as well so i'll bring my bridging link in into there which is doubled over and then my
connection so that goes into common so we're going to bring the permanent line into common and loop
across to the other common tighten that one off firm a little tug we're happy with that and
just bring the common into the next one so looped across there tighten that one up and it's
just a case then of connecting in two switching lines into L1 and L1 if they're the wrong way
round we've got a choice we can either rotate the dimmer or we can just swap them over so we've
got them front to back they were not necessarily that logical last time so open that one up pop it
in that's one of my switching line conductors done nice and firm and then we do the second one into
L1 and that's my new two gain dimmer connected and hopefully because this has been designed to
work with LEDs that will lose that flickering that we had previously on the old resistive type one
sometimes you can get away with it and obviously in this case i couldn't i'm trying to do a good
deed so that's in just give them a little tug and then i tend to like to push them back into
location and then just lean them forward before obviously screwing it back into place i'm probably
going to change this as well just one thing to bear in mind obviously i knew this was a deep
box because it already had a dimmer on from new um notice the depth of these these wouldn't fit
on a normal 16 mil chased in box you're going to need 25 mil at least in order to fit a dimmer
on so for some reason you say to your parents oh i can change that switch over for a dimmer it's
worth checking first of all the box is deep enough in the wall before you promise that you can fit
one in there but that's a straight change over just needs screwing back now and that's it
finished and we'll check to see if the new dimmer removes the flicker that we had with the previous
one so by removing the old resistive dimmer and installing one that's designed to dim LED
lights we've got rid of the flicker that we had before so that's a happy mum for me if
you want to know how i did the safe isolation procedure before carrying out the changing of
the dimmer switch check out the video just here
