I am a newbie in home automation.
I just ordered a Fibaro Dimmer just to see if it fit in my wall boxes.
I have attached the foto of a wall box with a single switch for a LED lamp.
The switch has only the two brown wires connected, then in the box there is a green/yellow cable + the blue cable. I think the blue cable is the neutral but I do not understand why is left free. Does it mean I have neutral available and therefore I can use Fibaro switch instead of Fibaro dimmer?
The second attachment is the photo of a switch of a LED lamp and the setup is similar but I have 3 brown wires connected instead of two (then I have again the yellow/green + blue left free).
The third attachment is a third switch, placed below the one of the second photo and has 3 brown wires and no yellow/green blue left free.
One of the brown wires that goes to your switch is the Phase (Live) and the other one goes to your lamp. When you have more then 2 wires you might just have 2 lamps or there is another switch for the same lamp or the Phase is just forwarded. The best thing for you to do is to call an electrician.
It looks as though you have standard 3-wire switching. See [url=http://www.vesternet.com/resources/application-notes/apnt-23#.VK-yLyusWSo]http://www.vesternet.com/resources/application-notes/apnt-23#.VK-yLyusWSo[/url] for an explanation. There are several more application notes on this helpful site. They should give you all the background that you need but, proceed with care!
As you have Neutral in your wall-boxes, you could use switches instead of dimmers.
Since both the Phase wire and the wire to the lamp is brown it might be tricky to find out witch one is witch with the power disconnected. Might have to turn on the power and do some measuring or open up the other end and try pulling the wires to find out more.
Black and brown should be L (life), blue N (nutral), yellow/gree E (earth). Switchboxes normally have two wires, black and/or brown, but only one has L, the other goes to the lamp. If you have a blue one too, you could even install a zwave-actor, like the Fibaro switch, who requires a N connection, which is often called a 3-wire connection. Gree/yellow is normally only found and required in outlet-boxes. Hope this helps…
Thanks a lot for the answers, I already knew the color standards.
What I do not understand is why on a switch I have 2 brown wires (with earth + neutral left free) and on a second switch I have 3 brown wires…
On the switch with two brown wires, one of them is the Live feed and the other goes to the light - often called Switched Live.
Where you have two brown wires on the same terminal of the switch, one is the Live feed coming to the switch and the other is taking the Live feed to other switches. The Live feed from the Breaker panel (aka Consumer Unit) often supplies several lights from one breaker.
Standard 3-wires you mean this one? http://www.vesternet.com/resources/application-notes/apnt-23
Yes - the one labelled 3-wire Lighting Systems
With the 3 wires setup you have actually 4-wires, right?
…or six if you count the two earth wires. I have no idea why it gets called 3-wire. The main feature is that it is fed with Live and Neutral and sends Switched-Live and Neutral to the light. Live and Neutral at each switch is usually looped out to feed the next one - until the end of the run. It is standard wiring in the UK now and has been for a few years.
It could be, but why are they linked? The two switches control two different lamps… ??? ???
EDIT: in the bathroom too it is the same. I think that electrician did like that in order to avoid to bring a long wire from the main panel. He brought only one and then divided to the second switch.
By the way, with the “phaseprufung” I verified that the phase (L) is where the switch is “orange coloured”.
Now the question is: if I want to install a dimmer for every switch, how shall I make the link where I have only one Live/L/Phase from the main panel and then it is divided for the other (they could be one or two switches more)?
I was wrong.
Actually in the bedroom I have two switches.
Both of them have two L-wires and one COM. One of each of the L-wire comes from “the wall”, the other interconnects the two switches…
And to be honest I do not understand. Both of them have L-wire coming from the wall, then another L-wire which interconnects the two switches…I mean…I do not understand the utility of this setup.
Could it be that the two switches are on the left and right side of the (kingsize) bed, simply to allow to turn a light on or off from the left or right side of the bed (known as Wechselschaltung in Germany)?
Yes, IMG_1670 and 1671; they are two switches which control two different lamps; they are located one above the other and one L-wire connects them (then there is one more L-wire coming from the main box) + the COM wire.
