Under cabinet lighting

brettuk · Post by **brettuk** » Sun Feb 02, 2020 10:22 pm

Hey,

Trying to get to grips with how my kitchen under cabinet lighting is wired, as I'd like to make it smart by putting a Shelly 1 relay in.

The lights are controlled from a single light switch, and are around the kitchen, with cables coming out from the walls. There appears to be a junction box which takes two flex cables into it. I'm trying to understand how this works, because my understanding would be that the junction box would need 3 or 4 flex cables going into it in order to work - you'd need a cable from supply with the neutral and live, you'd need a cable to the switch for the live and switched live, you'd need a cable going to the lights themselves, and you'd need a cable going back to the wall for the other lights elsewhere in the room, so I'm not sure how this works with just two cables.

I must be missing something - it's rather hard to see whats going on as a lot of the cables go behind cabinets etc, but just trying to understand! There are no marks on the lights themselves, so I can't even tell if they are 240v or low voltage - I have a gut feeling they are 240v as I see no evidence of a transformer, and they are fluorescent, not LED.

I've uploaded a few pictures - forgive the rather dirty lights and top of the cabinets, probably never been cleaned since installed!

Can anyone try and give me some insight as to how this might work? I'm eager to learn, I'm finding learning about electrics very interesting

Thanks

Someone-Else · Post by **Someone-Else** » Sun Feb 02, 2020 11:25 pm

Your thinking is correct in every detail. Sadly there is no such rule or regulation that says "Thou shalt connect the lights / run the cables thus" so you will have to trace the cables to see what goes where.

You may want to remove the switch to see how many cables are there.

I wish you luck.

brettuk · Post by **brettuk** » Mon Feb 03, 2020 5:12 pm

Cheers, at least my thinking was right!

What's the best way to trace cables? Use a non contact voltage detector to ensure all cables are off (and I should be able to follow the cable in the wall to an extent shouldn't I (when the power is on I mean)?) and then connect a multimeter in continuity mode to see which cable goes where? I've seen there are wire tracer tools, what do they give me that those two tools don't?

Thanks!