How do I connect ceiling lamp in the following set-up?

41 comments
  1. I would need a better picture where i can see the color of the wires properly and which ones are supposed to be for the light.

    Source= Electrician

  2. Yeah sometimes its easy to do yourself but personally this one looks sketchy. Tell your landlord to send an electrician.

  3. Holy crap… What a mess… It seems there isn’t the neutral one (yellow and green)… So you need to connect the black one and yellow one on the lamp… If it doesn’t work, switch… If it still doesn’t work… Call an electrician.

    Don’t forget to switch off electric…

  4. Since there is no PE, you need a security class II lamp. Yellow cables are a very old pre-1960 code installation for combined PE-neutral line. The dark greenish cable is hot.

    That said: Get an electrician and have a PE line pulled and your lamp mounted by a professional.

    Edit: Just curious, how old is the building?

  5. Also, there are 2 neutral conductors (yellow), and they are very poorly connected, if one gets lost, you have a disconncetion on the circuit and special in older buildings without protection earth may other devices will be under voltage, touch it and you feel 230 V through your body.

  6. Green goes on blue, yellow on brown, if that doesn’t work, switch them. Only work on them after you have turned off electricity in the room you’re working in. With modern circuit you don’t need a grounding cable usually. It’s not a big deal or difficult as long as you consider the safety measures you have to take (turn off that electeicity at the fuse box, not just assume that the light is turned off. Physically switch or take out the fuse and test if electricity is still running in the room by testing at the plugs, if unsure which fuse, turn off all).

  7. The two yellow should be N (neutral), unless someone at some point connected something wrong.
    DO NOT, under any circumstances disconnect those two while the fuse is on, otherwise you might BBQ something.

    As a learned electrician, I would arrange a [WAGO clamp](https://www.ebay.de/itm/164512714515)
    some wire and do it myself.

    However, you should do the following.
    Pay a lamp, some beer and meat and ask a friend who is electrician to help you out (send him the picture so he doesn’t have to walk twice) .

  8. Yellow is neutral : there are two wires, put those two and the one from your lamp (presumably blue) in the same terminal.

    The other colour (the dark colour, not sure if it’s green or black. That’s hard to see on the picture) is the live wire that comes from the light switch. Put it in the same terminal as the live wire of the lamp.

    Protection earth doesn’t exist here, because this installation is quiet old.

    If unsure, ask a friend or call an electrician.

    Attention: before touching any wires, switch off ALL circuit breakers AND measure with a suitable and working divice (phase tester / volt meter).

  9. You outsource it. Or invest in some thick rubber gloves and watch a YouTube video, but don’t. Call an electrician!!

  10. Just the thought of leaving the wires exposed like that… Irresponsible.

    If you can’t afford to call an electrician, get some Wago clamps to do the connections. Twisting wires like this is a cute way to connect things, but not safe or reliable.

    And of course turn off the breaker before you energize yourself.

  11. Just think of it as Swiss Lamp Tax and call a guy to install your 20 CHF Ikea lamp for a couple of hundred bucks 🙂

  12. I have just moved into a new apartment. My technique for installing the lamp (which worked perfectly) was
    1. Turn off every single breaker in the house because you can’t be bothered to check which breaker controls the lamp you are trying to install
    2. Throw away the instructions that came with the lamp
    3. Get a chair and place it under the lamp
    4. Hop on the chair and pray for your life
    5. Connect the cables however you want except for the yellow which is usually the ground
    6. Turn the breakers back on and check if the lamp works

  13. So much bs advice and nonsense in here it’s insane. Don’t give your expertise on stuff like that if your not a pro. People can get hurt and houses can burn down.

  14. This looks hauntingly similar to my flat. I asked my Polymech friend what to do, sent him a pic and all he replied was “I’ll be there in 20min”.

    Tl;dr: Get someone who knows what the fuck they’re doing. Could be potentially dangerous to do it yourself.

  15. you can buy one of these screwdrivers that have a little light that goes on when there is a current. use it to find out which of these wires is active (lights up) and which is neutral (doesn’t light up), then just connect them to the right place on your lamp (active -> brown, neutral -> blue)

  16. Like I keep telling my wife, if your husband says he will do something, you can be sure he will. No need to remind him every six months.

  17. Wow, this is dangerous, even illegal to hand over an apartment like this!!! There need to be plastic clips at the ends of the cables

  18. Before you do anything switch off the braker or take out the fuse.
    This is a pre 1974 Schema III installation. In that case yellow is neutral and the green one is live. There is no ground. So this means yellow goes on blue and green goes on brown.
    The two yellow wires must always be connected. It’s best if you do this with a wago clamp. If they aren’t connected properly you get a potentially life threatening situation where you could get electrocuted by touching metallic equipment which has a 3 pin connector.

  19. Red one is Phase propably for a socket that you have, 1 of the yellow is Neutral for socket and the other one for the lamp, you want to have them together but not twisted like that, it doesnt make good contact , i would buy “Wago Klemmen” to wire them together the “correct way”. You put those where N is on the lamp. The green one is “Lampendraht” and it goes where L is written on the lamp

  20. Seeing as I’ve always wanted to ask this question, why do Swiss take the light fittings when they move out?

  21. I’m not an electrician, but this doesn’t look very safe to me…..

    Get en Electrician.

  22. Ah yes, in Switzerland unfurnished truly means unfurnished. I’m half expecting to have to install my own doorknobs next.

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