electricallighting
Old flat in Melbourne, Australia. When i took out old fitting it had a red wire in joined to red out, a brown and a black one. One terminal had nothing. Have bought new fitting but it seems to be different. How do I know which one goes where?
Think I have done it!! Simple: Red into "L", Brown & Black – Live and Neutral.
Does that seem right?
It sounds wrong to me, but I couldn't be sure without actually being there. You should connect the new fixture, in exactly the same way the original fixture was connected.
If there wasn't a grounding conductor in the original circuit, replacing the fixture did not make one magically appear. If a grounding conductor is required, you'll have to install one in accordance with local codes.
Old UK wiring was as shown below
A comes from the fuse-box/consumer-unit (possibly via other junction-boxes/roses for other ceiling lights). B goes to the next ceiling light. C goes to the light switch for this lamp.
However most electricians will not have cable type C with two red wires and will have used regular cable with a black and a red wire and will put red tape around the end of the black wire to indicate it is "switched live" and not neutral (as it's black colour would suggest).
From what I've read, sometimes they would connect C's black wire to position 3 (the other red live wires) and then C's red wire would be the switched-live return from the switch. Connecting the black to the reds would make it obvious to an electrician and that might be why no wire had red-tape on it's end.
If someone has removed the red tape, you can:
A typical Non-Contact Voltage detector (NCV) and a typical mains tester
Finding which wires go to a switch using a multimeter (at least CatII 600V rated) on an isolated circuit (off at fusebox and tested for no 240V AC).
Looking at your photo, I think the top of the screw-block connections from left to right are probably:
In which case your lamp should be connected at the bottom of the two right-most positions.
Best Answer
What you call brown is actually "white".
Likely black/red carries mains power. White/red is a leg down to the switch. L is Load. E is Earth. Your bulb should span from the black (neutral), to white (switched hot).
You can verify this all with an inexpensive non-contact voltage tester. See also https://diy.stackexchange.com/a/28019/5960