Electric pull switch two brown wires and an earth

Teena56

Hi
can anyone help I have trolled Youtube and the internet and can't find and answer. I am trying to change a pull switch without looking I unscrewed everything but then to find I have two brown wires and an earth wire... how do know which brown wire is witch? I don't know which to wire into the L1 and L2
Thanks

Explosive_Cornflake

Have a look here

L1 and L2 are for the strappers.

Teena56

Hi thanks for the reply but .... my problem is having two brown wires and an earth.... On the switch there is holes for L1 L2 and common and earth how do I know what brown wire goes where ? sorry I looked at that link to the page you sent but it doesn't explain or I don't probably understand it... its not laymans enough for me I think

brightspark

If it is just two brown wires one goes into the common the other goes into either L1 or L2.

Earth wire to the earth connection.

Teena56

Will I blow up the house if I put the Brown into the wrong L1 or L2 ? Scared of causing damage and you just can't get a tradesman of any sort at the moment especially not for a small job thanks

TheChizler

When you're switching a common to a single live direction doesn't really matter. Just hook up l1 and common to the two browns. If you really wanted you could (safely!) energise the cable and use a multimeter to check which is live but there's no real point.

Teena56

Okay I will try that

brightspark

L1 and L2 are used for two way switching (where you have two switches operating the same lamp)

If it is only one lamp then it doesn't matter if you use L1 or L2 in a pull cord switch (for a wall switch it might make the switch upside down (off would be on, on would be off), annoying maybe but still works.

So one brown wire to common and one to L1, with the earth wire to the earth terminal.

Dtp1979

Op no offence, but if you can’t figure that out then you have no business playing with electricity. Call an Electrican before you kill yourself

Teena56

Thank you thank you..... so happy lights are on!