i have just taken an old light down and cant get the new 1 to work?

Is this light on a 2way switch (2 or more switchs can turn on this light) ? is there 2 lights coming on together ? if so two of them red and blacks or your mains (reds together feed and blacks together neutral) the other red and black could be mains or if two lights together the red is a switch wire and black goes along with other blacks as neutral. as for 2 single reds one is feed and other is switchwire. feeds go in connectionof their own neutrals connect to blue and switchwires connect to brown of light fitting hope this helps

Raffelect
November 2009

The normal arrangement at a ceiling rose is to have Live coming in - Live Going to the Next Rose and Live going off to the switch - all three connected together and to nothing else - especially NOT to the light. These 3 wires are very often RED in an older property in the UK.

There will a Black Neutral associated with the Live coming in and another Black Neutral associated with the Live going to the next rose - these two should connect together.

The wire that comes back from the switch often looks like a Neutral wire - but it isn't - it's Switched Live to turn the light on and off - it should be identified to show that it's a Live conductor - usually a Red or Brown sleeve or sometimes just a piece of tape.

The lamp itself connects - one wire to the two Black Neutrals and the other wire to the Switched Live - the wire that may look like a neutral - but isn't.

I have no idea what the function of your "2xsingle red wires" might be...

http://www.flameport.com/electric/lighting_circuits/lighting_ceiling_rose_other_colours.cs4

Take care...

Peccavi
November 2009