in this series of videos we've been looking at the connections in the back of a ceiling rose and
we've gone through making the connections for the three plate method and then we've added another
cable to feed another room and then we've added a cable to have a light come on at the same time
from a ceiling rose using the three plate method and we've also added a cable for an extractor fan
we've talked about the layout in here and the reasons why i've disconnected the outside
conductor just to make it easier for you to see what's going on but i've introduced this
time the switch so we've got a conventional layout here so let's go through it we've got
our neutral coming in and our neutral going out to another room we've got a permanent line coming in
permanent line coming out a permanent line down to the switch and a blue conductor
identified with brown sleeving which isn't a neutral which is our switching line conductor
coming back and we've got our connections for our circuit protective conductors if we
follow this cable now here with our permanent line and switching line over to our switch
we can see our permanent line comes down into the common i've used a two-way switch as a one-way
switch something you can do so it is a one gang so one switch but it's two weighed and i've used it
as a one-way switch so we've used the connection here which is our switching line not a neutral
it's identified with brown sleeving which comes back so when i operate the switch
the permanent line comes through the switch and comes on onto my switching line and would appear
here at the ceiling rows turning the lamp on as far and i've got our connections for our flex in
this case so we'll have a neutral on one side our switching line conductor on the other side
if i look at there's a batten lamp holder neutral on one side switching line conductor on the other
i've taken them out just to make it easier for me to show you what's going on
now it's often suggested that you need a neutral at a switch especially when you start introducing
smart switches well you could wire your light in circuit using the two plate method this isn't
this is the three plate method and we should be comfortable with this now i will leave a link in
the description and the eye above my head to a playlist that i've got on the two plate method
the two plate method does make a neutral appear at the light switch so in other words our feed comes
into our switch which has a neutral and then we do our configuration for our light switches
but we're using the three plate method is there a way of getting a neutral down at the switch just
by simply changing the way we wire it yes there is so at the minute we've got a twin and CPC cable
coming from our ceiling rows through the floors chased into the walls and down to our switch
but what if we just put a three core on CPC so we add an extra conductor we could make
that conductor a neutral and we could leave the neutral floating around either in the back of the
box or connect it to the switch in order that in the future our switch does have a neutral and in
case it's changed to a smart system that needs a neutral at the switch you've already done it
i'd love your comments below if that's something you already do during your apprenticeship you're
probably not taught this but on site it might be now that you're taking a 3 core in cpc using
the three plate method down to your first switch so you can drop a neutral off there
so what i'm going to do is i'm going to disconnect my conductor which currently
goes down to the switch and the one at the switch and replace it with the three core and then we're
going to look at the terminations that we'll need to make inside here in order that we can
drop that neutral down to the switch this is a training rig so obviously i haven't done the safe
isolation procedure i have done it many times on the channel you cannot start disconnecting
conductors in here without first doing that safe isolation procedure the cable i want to get out
is the one that goes down to the switch so i'm going to take out my switching line conductor
and my permanent line conductor as well as my CPC and i'm just going to replace this cable both ends
so just pop it out of the way and i've got to get my CPC out i suppose it's the one at the bottom
the most awkward position try and keep myself out of the way of the camera so we'll pull those out
and it's this cable here that would not be installed so in other words we've got to do the
same effort but let's not install the twin and CPC cable let's take this one out another switch as
well and let's replace it with a 3 core so part of the first fix now we've got a 3 core and CPC cable
introduced meaning that we can therefore get a neutral down to the switch let's strip this
back and look at where we're going to connect it in order that we can get that neutral down
here's my twin nerve strippers don't have stripped enough on off those let's pull
it up a little bit further strip a little bit more pass it through the body of the strippers
and get them to a reasonable length okay so here are conductors we looked at in a previous
video what we can use them for obviously we've got the brown so the brown's going to be our
permanent loin connection so it'll go in our loop terminal so we know what that one's doing
our bare conductors are CPC and we're left with black and grey so one of these
is going to be the neutral and one of these is going to be the switching line conductor
and we said in the previous video we're trying to denaturalise black
so black is actually going to be our switching line conductor identified with brown sleeving
and our grey is going to be our neutral conductor identified with blue sleeving so let's make those
connections next doesn't matter which ones we start with shall i start with let's get rid of
the CPC that's probably gonna be the fiddliest so i'm gonna lay that round and put my CPC into there
so oversleep my CPC and i can get rid of that one again we talked about in previous videos to
when you're taking terminations out of a ceiling rose it's just to check the copper hasn't been too
fractured inside there so look at these conductors here and see how squashed they are in case they
do need re-terminating okay so it's probably a little bit long just trim that back a little bit
and again i did say in a previous video this is one of the few times that i actually don't
double over my terminations anyone who's followed me for a long time on the channel will know
i'm a big fan of doubling over connections so i can use either of the terminations to make my
life a little bit easier i'm probably going to use now the other one hadn't been doing
that in the other videos so let's open that one up try and stay out the way of
the camera let's pop our CPC's in hopefully we can see the conductors come through so can you
see them all go through i'm going to give them a tug as well so let's tighten those up it doesn't
matter if a little bit of copper comes through a little bit too far it is the protective conductor
so i just got to make sure yeah i can see the other two so i'm going to tighten that one up
and i guess my CPC is out the way so now it's just a case of making the right connections and the
right identification for the rest of the three core so we said we're going to use the gray as
our neutral and we can see that the two neutral terminations have been taken up and we said in a
previous video we could use the outside ones but you've got to remember that's where the flex is
going to go that comes down say to the pendant and we don't often like to introduce another
one there but you can so i'm going to put two another one into one of the connections making it
two so it doesn't matter which one again i choose probably choose the outside one i'm going to need
to identify it as my neutral so i need to bring in some blue sleeving order that i can identify
it so that now becomes my neutral terminal there so again i've got to strip that back
let's use my twin and earth strippers again bring it in okay and then just cut it back to length
and once again if you're coming in with another conductor that's already been terminated just have
a little look at it and just see how fractured it is that's fine it's got small denim sometimes it's
a really heavy dent and it can be worth remaking those terminations off because they can break
so we drop that one in we drop in our neutral of our three core now and we tighten that one up and
then i'll just dress it back into position nice and firm dress that round bring my blue sleeve in
okay so there we have it we've got the three core round so that's got our neutral we've got our
brown conductor which is going to be our permanent line and our switching line so bring that one
round so this is going to go into the loop to pick up our permanent line down to our switch
strip that back
and we're ready to terminate that one
and then we pop that into there and that brings our permanent line down to our switch which will
go into common and we will make off the switch as well in this video so we can discuss what we
can do with that neutral and then our switching line conductor which will need to be identified
with brown sleeving so that's on a black one and again just strip that back and terminate it i'll
be a little bit long at that i am so let's go again if you've got any of these twin strippers
i'd love some feedback if you've been using them regularly how long they last obviously i'm an
occasional stripper of cable so i haven't had the uh everyday use out of them i really would like
your feedback so a little bit long then see a tiny bit of copper so i'm just going to trim that back
and just pop it into my termination so it's in like so so then i've got my switching line now
is a black so that's my connections made off in my ceiling rows now i've done nothing extra for
effort-wise as an electrician because i've put a three core and CPC instead of a twin and c pc
meaning that now i've got to float in neutral when i get down to my switch so let's have a
look at the switch next so i've got my three core cable down here i'm just going to strip that back
and pull it off there we go so let's work out what we've got again so we've got a permanent line
that will go in common we've got a switching line we've got to remember that is the black one that
is our switching line we've got a neutral we don't need but he's there for the future
and we've got a circuit protective conductor again not needed in here in a fully insulated switch
but remember it could be changed from a metallic one which is an exposed conductive
part let's give it a CPC first before we work out what we're going to do with that neutral
CPC into my terminal in the back of my plastic insulated box
just trim that back with a pair of pliers take my pliers i'll double that one over
okay so double my CPC over terminal is a lot bigger than it is in the ceiling rows and pendant
so i can put those in so then we go into the earth terminal secure it into place and then we've got
our conductors we'll do the neutral last let's identify a switching line conductor and there's
two ways in which i'm going to do it i'm going to use a connector for the neutral and i'm also going
to use that other switch i've used in the past as well so black becomes my switching line conductor
maybe a little bit more than that
okay so hopefully that's enough and double over those terminations
they're going to go into my switch so i said i do like a doubled over termination i just don't
like it um struggling in the ceiling rows so let's bring our switch in we've got common and we've got
L1 to make this a one-way switch so my permanent line i'll put in common am i switching line in L1
switching line first and this is the switch that i had on originally
so there's been no uh no change enough switch just make sure that's in yeah and then we pop
in our line into the common connection of our switch and that's our switch made off as if
it's a one-way switch even though it is obviously a two-way switch we talked about a lot in college
how you can use a two way switch as a one way switch so then the connections so that would be
working now exactly as it was before and we've now got a neutral so i've got a choice i could
put it in any of these connectors here so i've got on both Ideal Industries and Wago connectors
i'm going to put it into one of these and leave it in the back of the box
so again exactly the same as before you can see on the side of it the amount of
insulation to remove and it's 11 mil so i've got to remove 11 mil of those and then i can
have another neutral out the other side or i could have this style one here which is
obviously still 11 mil as well just a different layout i can strip off 11 now see how close i
was it's pretty good in it so that's just about 11 mil for me i'm happy with that
i've got to identify it because it's gray but it's not a gray conductor it's a neutral conductor
so we need to put our over sleeving on so put a blue over sleeving on and now we've got a neutral
waiting in the switch itself in case in the future the customer then turns that one into
a smart switch so look at that so neutral's there in the future and we've got a standard
switching arrangement how much more effort is it to put a three core and CPC down to the switch
than a twinning CPC effort wise no slightly deer on the cable but you future proof the installation
with that now i've shown in a previous video one of these type of switches again it's one gang
and is a two way switch common L1 L2 and a loop terminal that loop terminal i used in a previous
video to connect my neutrals in so i could have used this switch and i'm going to change this
one over and that connection there as i showed in a previous video is not connected to any of
the other terminals so it's a standalone terminal so it's as if it is just a standard connector
we can put the neutrals in there you couldn't do that in this one because obviously this terminal
here which is spare is actually connected to the live conductors at some point in the switching
sequence and if you put that one into there obviously when you turned it on it would go bang
so that's one way we could use that kind of switch with a in this case a Wago connector Wago
221 connector but let's swap it over and imagine we had these other stylus which is i think it's
Hager and Schneider that make the ones that have a terminal in there that can be used for neutral
so drop that one off i've just got to check my connections now so we've got common and one way
so i need to use the two at the top to make this a one way switch so common i'm going to use my brown
put my brown into common and then i'm going to put my switching line conductor
into L1 or one way and then i can disconnect that if i was using this style of one i would need to
double it over because it's Gaz and i could put my neutral in the back of the switch now this is
this is one of those where hopefully the electrician and the DIY would come to a
little bit of a clash then wouldn't they because people are going to think that that's actually a
switching line conductor so it should be in the loop terminal and we'll check it's in the loop
put it in the loop yeah okay so i've got that one in the loop so we've got
permanent line switching line okay so that's our switch working normal this loop terminal isn't
connected anything it's a gray one blue sleeving and is the neutral now if we installed it this
way i'm sure that would ward off one or two people having to go at some DIY changing switches because
they're likely to think if they had a two-way switch they'd have to put all three terminals in
but actually the loop terminal isn't connected to anything it's just where we've situated on neutral
i'd love your thoughts on that one as well i'm probably going to favor leaving a Wago style
connector in the back of the actual switch but you could use those switches from Schneider and Hager
that allow you to have a neutral connection as well so what's your thoughts have you done this
before have you been introducing a three core and CPC from your three plate method
bringing down your neutral to your switch because you're future-proofing the installation for smart
switches have you stuck with a traditional twinning CPC down worry about it in the future
please leave those comments below and it would be really interesting so there we have it
we by introducing the three core and CPC down there you can get a neutral litter
switch even though you don't need it and therefore you future proof the installation
and as always i hope this video has been some help