so we're continuing on
our series of warring diagrams and this
time we're back in with the two plate
method
but now it's two plate method two-way
and intermediate so we've got two
two-way switches and an intermediate one
previous video we did the two-way on
two-plate method
remember the two-plate method is where
we take the feed
directly to the switch there are plenty
of videos on the channel
using the three plate method but it's
common now in industry
especially where the lighting points
i've only shown one here
are lots of led down lights so where
we've got a lot of led down lights
general wiring system now in new
domestic dwellings is to take the feed
from
in this case the consumer unit directly
to the switch the feed could come from
another room which is also either doing
the two plate or three plate method
generally you keep it to the same method
throughout the installation and i've
done a video where i'm in someone's
house
looking at the two plate method as well
so
two-way and intermediate so we've got
one gang one switch on the front two-way
switch with a common and two of the
terminals
they're called l1 and l2 on this one but
they can be called something slightly
different
so that's our two-way switch we've got
our
intermediate switch in the middle just
be careful on the wiring diagram that
this how
this here is the top and this is the
bottom sometimes people can do a wiring
diagram the other way around we haven't
here
but that still the top and those are the
bottom okay it doesn't matter which way
around we go with our cables
but we've got to make sure we get a pair
in the top and a pair in the bottom
and not across the side that's often a
mistake my learners make in the workshop
and wiring these
up so that is in the correct rotation
for a
one gang intermediate switch and again
on the end
we've got a one gang
two-way switch and i've said before you
can have as many intermediate switches
as you like
as long as at each end you have two-way
switches and i've
done a video where i've extended a
two-way circuit to add another
intermediate switch so if you want to
see how to do that
again check out that video so two plate
method
taking the feed into the first switch so
let's start off by bringing in
our cpc i'm going to do this upside down
so just be careful and
remember i'll expect you to use a rule
all of these drawings are downloadable
with a link in the description so if you
want to make your own drawings up for
college you can
or if you're doing some distance
learning that's another good way of
doing it so you can download the drawing
so take the cpc
this is the earth terminal this is the
neutral and this is where the fuse will
be connected
pretty much this is the only section of
the drawing that isn't identical to how
you would wire it up in the real world
this is just representing the top of the
circuit breaker
the neutral bar and the earth bar and
the consume unit but the connections
within
all the switches will be identical for a
wiring diagram
so let's bring our cpc in so i'm just
going to bring it up as if it's gone
around the fabric of the building
upper wall etcetera and it's made its
way to the actual switch itself
and i'm going to bring it round like so
so it's there into the earth terminal
now it could be that you've got a metal
box and the earth terminal is in the
back of it
in college we're using boxes that are
plastic again they do have an earth
terminal
in the back so that cable is brought in
and it's being brought in on this one
here which is
our feed in which is our permanent line
cpc and our neutral and at college we
use one millimeter squared
twin and cpc often called on-site twin
and earth cable so that's what i'm
simulating here
the feed coming in and remember we would
over sleeve the cpc
with green and yellow sleeve and i've
represented it currently with a green
cable
but i'm going to make it green and
yellow by just taking
a yellow strike down it and bring that
round
like so that's our cpc within our first
cable so that's taking the feed from
in this case the consume unit into the
actual switch itself
let's bring the neutral in so it's in
the same cable got a blue neutral
and in this style of switch that we've
got here there are no facilities for a
neutral connection
i know some manufacturers do give you a
terminal that you can actually connect
your neutral into these don't which is
fine so we're going to make our own
connection in there
i'll show that connection in the form of
a little
rectangle so that's in other words a
connector
now that can look like the following it
could be something like that which is
from ideal industries
a levered connector from wago it could
be a screwed connector old-fashioned
screwed in five amp connector
or a through butt or splice crimp
depending on what you want to call it
generally at college we've been using
the levered variety of waygo connectors
in order to make our connection but any
of those would be acceptable to make a
connection
in the back of the box for the neutral
okay
so that's it so we've now got to bring
our permanent line in so it's coming out
the top of our six amp breaker for us
and we've got to make a decision where
that's going to go
within our switch that's bringing our
permanent line connection
in it wouldn't matter where we go out of
these two terminals here
which are l1 and l2 okay won't matter
which one they're going but i don't put
it into common because i always use
black as common a discussion we've had
on
instagram with my instagram followers
remember you can check out gsa to
electrical instagram as well
asking people what color they used in
common i always use black
other people use different colors so my
drawing will have black as common
so i'm going to bring in my feed and i'm
going to bring it into here doesn't
matter whether it's l1 or l2 it's the
nearest point for me
in my switch for order the connections
it keeps it less messy
so let's bring that one into there so
what i've done
i've brought in from either in this case
the consumer unit or another room
the permanent line neutral and cpc
directly into my switch and this is the
two plate method
i'm now going to have to introduce
cables that come through here in order
to have
the switching system correct so the next
cable we're going to need to
introduce could be the one up to the
actual light or the one between here and
here i'm going to stick with this one
so i'm now going to bring a cable from
here from the switch
up to my lighting point itself again
this is going to be
a one millimeter squared twin and cpc or
twin and earth cable
so i'm going to bring up to the lighting
points move this out the way up to the
lighting point here
it will need a neutral which is going to
come from this connector block here
and we need a protective conductor a cpc
from here
and it will need a switching line
conductor so this one coming out of this
switch up to
the lighting point doesn't want to be
connected here because that's permanent
line it needs to come out of a different
part it's going to come out of here
as my switching line conductor so
let's bring those out so we bring out
what should we start with let's start
with the cpc
so let's bring out cpc and i'm going to
connect it
into here remember i expect you to use a
rule
so that's coming from the switch up to
our lighting point which is possibly
some led spots things like that so
that's him we can do next we've got a
choice i'm going to bring out either my
neutral or my
switching line so let's bring out my
switching line next
my switching line conductor comes up
again comes into my joint doesn't matter
where i connect it inside this joint
here
so it could be that i'm connecting it
onto
the appropriate terminals of the back of
an led light
it could be that i've got an led light
fitting
that has a flex with it and therefore
will require a joint on it and that
joint can be made in our wago box
it can be made in a purpose-built
connector so in here there's a set of
connectors
it could be in this side of the box here
or
this styler box here so we're just
representing the fact
that we've got a form of connection here
before our light
and this is meant to be for us an led
spot
so that's brought out our switching line
connection our cpc now we've got to get
a neutral so i'm going to try and make
this
as clear as i can without obviously
clashing with some cables i'm going to
have to come out of here
and i'm going to have to bring a neutral
out so let's bring how can we make that
look as neat as possible
let's let's just bring it
up here like so and then across
to make our neutral connection so what
we've got there
is from the switch we've come out of the
other one out of
l1 and l2 it doesn't matter which one i
chose that will be our switching line
our cpc and our neutral connection that
come up to here
at the minute it wouldn't work obviously
because we've not completed the cabling
system that goes between our
intermediate switch and our other
two-way switch
that's the start of our wiring diagram
so this cable here
is a one millimeter squared pvc pvc twin
cpc cable often called twin and earth
this one here is also a pvc pvc twin cpc
cable twin and earth and they're one
millimeter squared for us
feed in switching line neutral and cpc
out
now we can introduce a cable between our
two way switches it's always the same
whether it be the two plate or three
plate method remember this is the two
plate method
i'm going to introduce a three core so
we've got brown black
gray and quite a tarnished circuit
protective conductor there
which again will need to be oversleeved
at connection so the drawing always
shows that as green and yellow
so from this switch to this switch we
can introduce this three core
and cpc or three core in earth cable
again it's one millimeter squared
now it's going to take a journey isn't
it from this switch maybe upper wall or
down a wall
through floors possibly or through
ceilings in order to get from this point
to this point
however it's the connections we're
looking at that are important not
necessarily the route the cable takes so
i'm just going to come sideways with
this one
it would obviously take the journey
through the fabric of building
accordingly
so i said to you that my black is going
to be the one that i'm going to link
from my common well there is no common
connection
in intermediate switch you've just got
two terminals and two terminals
sometimes labeled l1 l2 l1 l2 can be l1
2 3 and 4 but it's top and bottom
so the three core cable that comes from
this switch to here
either goes in the top two connections
or it goes in the bottom two it doesn't
matter which but what it doesn't do is
go across the sides
so as i'm bringing my cables through i
don't want them to come into this side
and then a cable from here going out
it's got to go in the top two or the
bottom two but it doesn't matter
so it's either these two or these two
however there is no facility in here for
my connection for my common
because i've drawn in there that
connector so i'm going to bring my black
from this common into my connector and
then i'm going to work out my other two
cables from here
across to here in my three chords so i'm
going to take my black first
my black conductor comes out of my
common
so we can either go down and along and
i'm going to bring it into there
so that's my black connection and again
we know it's a switching line connection
so at each end
i need to identify it with brown
sleeving so i need to over
sleeve my brown conductor to identify it
as a switching line connection
so that's in a joint remember what we
said it could be any of the following
styles of connection in order to make it
in here
and i've shown a traditional connector
block but it's more likely to be
something like that
so that's the first one so that's the
black one done okay we know the cpc if
you want to do that next get rid of it
we're just going to bring our cpc across
so our cpc and our three core cable
would come across
like so and again just strike it with a
little bit of yellow
in order that we can see that cpc so
that's got rid of
the black and the cpc just leaves me two
cables left
so we've got the brown and the gray so
for me now
i know this one here comes through and
is my permanent line
and this one here is my switching line
so i like to make the brown of the three
core
come in here and the gray in here it
could be the wiring doesn't matter but
it makes logical sense to leave the one
that's permanently connected to the line
to be the brown in the three core so
that's why i don't use brown
as common which some people do do so
that one would be permanent
line so let's bring that through so my
three core i'm going to bring up my
brown through here and i've got to make
a choice so if i'm going to bring that
one i'm probably going to put it over
and what did i do last time just confirm
i did it last time i brought it into the
first one
so i'll bring it in like so so that's my
brown through
okay and then i've got my gray so i take
my grey out of the
l1 or l2 it doesn't matter which i'll
bring
that along and kick it into there like
so
let's go so what we got we've got the
black from here
the three core cable comes into a
connector and we identified with brown
and sleeving we've got the brown
out of the one with the permanent line
l102 it doesn't matter and it comes
across
into the top of our intermediate switch
or the bottom it doesn't matter which it
could have come in either way around but
obviously for the drawing sake it's gone
in the top for ease
and then we've got our grey conductor of
l1 or l2 of our switch
so l1 or o2 doesn't matter which as long
as you're keeping it
correct as we come through to here and
again we've got to identify that grey
conductor as a switching line connection
with brown sleeve in both ends so while
let's have a
quick look at what's happened there
we're taking the feed into our switch
we've made the appropriate connections
we've taken a cable out to our light
switch
and we've come out of here our neutral
block on our cpc in order to bring our
switching line connection up
we've introduced a three-core cable from
our two-way switch to our intermediate
we've deposited the black connection
into a connector or some sort of
lever connector in there so not
connected within the switch itself
and we've put the other two conductors
either in the top two or the bottom two
of the switch and we brought those
through all we need to do now is
introduce another three core across to
our next switch so we use the three core
again
so it would be nice and simple now we're
going to take out a black
to come to our common so we can come out
the bottom again if we want to and come
around for our common or we could come
out the top and round whichever we fancy
it's only a wiring diagram
remember so if i bring out a connection
out of here like so i bring my black
through to my common of my final two-way
switch for this one
it's identified both ends with brown
sleeving
that's my first three core introduced
again it's going to take a route through
the fabric of the building required
that's got rid of the black cpc is going
to link the two together nice and simple
to get rid of those
get rid of our cpcs
like that and now we've just got to
bring our three
core into our l1 and l2 and it doesn't
matter
again we could have brown here and gray
there coming across to here
it doesn't have to match here either
it's just that we have a brown or a gray
a brown or a gray coming out over to
here and here there is no requirement
for them to match
and there's no requirement for them to
match here however logically we always
like to don't we we like to have
the gray opposite the gray the brown
opposite the brown
but let's go with that so let's bring
out our brown
so we're going to bring that out and
round and let's connect it into here
like so and then we'll bring out our
gray
i'm going to bring that round and we're
going to connect it like so
remembering we've got to identify again
with brown sleeve in
both ends of our grey like so
so that's made our connections so i've
introduced the three core between here
and here
a three chord between here and here and
this is our wiring diagram
for our two way and intermediate when
we've got
the two plate method in play so two
plate method means the feed goes to the
switch
and then we make our connections
appropriately in here permanent line
here
neutral in a connector cpc we introduced
a
switching line a neutral and a cpc
that comes out to our light fin and then
we introduce a three core between our
switches
i've also done a video where i've
explained these connections on a board
so i've actually physically made all of
these connections
and these two videos would work hand in
hand together
so this wiring diagram starts the
process of understanding the connections
then the video will help you make those
connections
but it's only over time of doing this in
industry that you'll get comfortable
with taking the feed to the switch
okay so that's the wiring diagram for
the two plate
method for two-way and intermediate i
was asked before about how to add
another switch in and i've done that in
another video how could i make this say
for instance have another switch
that way okay so what you end up doing
is taking this one off and moving it to
the next position and put another
intermediate switch here
make the connections accordingly which
would put the black into a connector
you keep these two one side of the
intermediate switch you'd introduce a
three core going that way but there is a
video on how to
add more intermediate switches whether
it be two play or three plates the same
process
to the actual switching system that
we've got here
so hopefully this completes the current
part of the series on
two plates so we did the one way the
two-way and the intermediate
switching of a light and circuit when we
take the feed to the switch
often called the two-plate method so as
always
i hope this video has been some help
you