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