Explaining may take some time, and I need to understand it myself first. But...
Inherited garage electrics from previous owner. Bit of a diy chap. There is a single plug socket for power in the garage. Off the side of that is a spur(?) wired into the side if the plug socket for lights on a switch as pic below.
The row of power sockets has another wire exiting up as you can see. That leads to two other similar 4 gang sockets in the garage. Plugged into one of these is light with a pull cord by the door. It's alway on as it's plugged into power from the 4 gang socket.
Where as the rest of the lights are on the switch next to the plug socket in the pic.
At some point long ago, the light on the pull cord failed iirc. I replaced it with a strip light. This was one of two I had that where discarded at work. They both had plugs on. They both work in a plug socket. BUT with plug removed and wired into the electrics to replace the pull cord light it refused to work. And there is stayed for years until today.
In a very rare fit if energy I got facked off with the state of the garage and tidyed up , put shelves back after the boiler was re sited in the garage etc.
Then... That poxy light....
I unscrewed the pull cord switch cover. Loose brown wire. Unplugged from the 4 gang. Re did the wire. Nfg.
Checked the ceiling rose, unscrewed to reveal a choc box, checked connections no problem. Still nfg.
Unplugged. Meter out. Beeps from the live pin on the plug to the light wire going in. Fine. Nothing coming back from the light on the blue wire.
Plug back in. Diagnostic screw driver shows red light on the live. Not the fuse in the plug.
Swapped the working light onto the same blue brown wire still nfg.
Can't find the fault....
Notice that the strip light has about 2 meters excess cable. Rip the old blue brown flex with no earth out. Run the light cable with earth to the 4 gang socket. It works.
Unplug, run the cable over the ceiling, wire the pull cord switch into the live brown exactly as before. Still works. Fine job done.
Only difference is the new cable as already on the light has an earth. Old cable didn't, and all the old cable bells out for continuity.
It all works fine now.... But Wtf?
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Topic: Today I mostly learnt... (Read 8030 times)