Timeline for Ceiling fan light powered by two 3-way switches, but also by fan's single pole switch. Is it safe to replace the 3-way switch with a smart dimmer?
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
16 events
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| Sep 22, 2021 at 2:13 | comment | added | scorgn | It looks like they sharpied the end black, but alas I have a white paint marker! Thanks again! | |
| Sep 22, 2021 at 2:07 | comment | added | ThreePhaseEel | @scorgn -- you'll have to remove whatever the original electrician used to mark the wire as a hot | |
| Sep 22, 2021 at 2:04 | comment | added | scorgn | Awesome thanks for walking me through it all! I feel a lot more confident with this now. Just one last question, does it matter if I use the white wire, black wire, or red wire as the neutral? I think I would use the white since that's usually neutral, but it has black ends to mark it as hot and I don't want someone to think I've tied the neutral with a hot wire. | |
| Sep 22, 2021 at 1:57 | comment | added | ThreePhaseEel | @scorgn -- you got it! | |
| Sep 22, 2021 at 0:53 | comment | added | scorgn | Thanks for the patience. So I need to add a wire from the bundle of hots that red wire goes in, to the hot terminal on the main dimmer. Then attach the red to the hot terminal on the remote dimmer, so now both always have a live hot. Then the purple wire will go from the bundle of neutral wires to the neutral terminal of the remote. Then the green will go from the RD/YL of the remote to the RD/YL of the main. Then add a jumper from the bundle of neutral wires to the neutral terminal on the main. In the end it would look like this i.imgur.com/5cYdVVM.png. Does that sound right? | |
| Sep 21, 2021 at 23:59 | comment | added | ThreePhaseEel | @scorgn -- no, you need to have a jumper from the wirenut where the red wire connects in at over to the hot terminal on the master dimmer, while whichever of the purple or green wires connects to the neutral on the remote needs to be moved over to connect to the neutral in the master switch box. (It sounds like you're assuming that the wiring for this is identical to mechanical 3-way switch wiring, which is not the case for the Leviton dimmer you're using!) | |
| Sep 21, 2021 at 13:08 | comment | added | scorgn | Aren't the purple and the added yellow highlighted wires both repurposed as hots both going to the main dimmer and remote in the bottom image? And the green highlighted wire the one communication bus wire? (The top image is supposed to be how it is wired now, and the bottom image how it will change, to illustrate exactly which cords will be moved where) | |
| Sep 21, 2021 at 11:37 | comment | added | ThreePhaseEel | @scorgn -- not quite, you need to have hot going to both the main dimmer and the remote, and there's only one communications bus wire coming back from the remote, not the pair of travelers that'd go with a mechanical 3-way switch | |
| Sep 21, 2021 at 1:59 | comment | added | scorgn | I think I understand. So I can't just have the remote dimmer use the neutral from the front-door light, I need to use the neutral from the bundle where the main switch is. Also, since the line and the load on the remote both go on the same screw on the remote, both the main dimmer and the remote will always have an active hot going to it anyways (unlike a non-smart 3-way switch) and so I can just pigtail from the existing bundle of hots to both the main dimmer and the remote dimmer. Just want to be 100% sure, does this diagram look like the right rewiring? i.imgur.com/nZEcVXB.png | |
| Sep 21, 2021 at 0:39 | comment | added | ThreePhaseEel | @scorgn -- you'll have to retask the white in the inter-switch cable as a neutral and land black on the main dimmer's hot screw in addition to a pigtail from the existing hot wires in the box so that you have the correct wires available to you at the remote location, and fit the matching remote as well, of course | |
| Sep 20, 2021 at 22:27 | comment | added | ThreePhaseEel | @scorgn -- modulo terminology (they're wires instead of cables or cords), that's correct | |
| Sep 20, 2021 at 21:09 | comment | added | scorgn | Okay, thank you! I am going to use a voltage meter to see if I am identifying which is hot and which is not. It looks to me as if the white cable that is attached to the bundle of black wires besides switch B is the hot wire that gives power to switch A in some sort of switch loop type of setup. It is marked black on both ends as well. Then the black cord coming from the top of switch B as well as the red cord coming from the bottom of switch C are both loads going towards the fan/light. | |
| Sep 20, 2021 at 11:40 | comment | added | ThreePhaseEel | @scorgn -- I'm going to have to look at the instructions myself and get back to you on this one | |
| Sep 20, 2021 at 6:19 | vote | accept | scorgn | ||
| Sep 20, 2021 at 3:41 | comment | added | scorgn | Okay that makes sense, thanks. I was thinking that each cable was for a switch, but instead it's a line / load / traveler cable. So the instructions say to hook the main dimmer up like this i.imgur.com/oy8LsfX.png. Using the same image for the switch with my diagram, would I hook the purple, green, and blue highlighted cords on the left to the terminals as shown on the right of this picture i.imgur.com/ZP9hzQ1.png (with an added cable from the neutral bundle as highlighted orange)? Also, does it matter which traveler goes to which of the two terminals on the right? | |
| Sep 20, 2021 at 1:21 | history | answered | ThreePhaseEel | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
