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So, I am currently trying to wire a 3-way switch, but specifically the Jasco 45609 and its auxiliary switch counterpart the Jasco 45610.

The Jasco 45609 has 5 wire inputs:

  • Load
  • Line
  • Ground
  • Traveler
  • Neutral

The Jasco 45610 has 3 wire inputs:

  • Ground
  • Traveler
  • Neutral

So I've wired the primary switch (45609) with the proper wire inputs.

  • 120V "hot" wire goes to line (black)
  • load goes to the light (black)
  • ground to exposed copper
  • traveler to a red wire
  • neutral to a white wire

And I've wired the auxiliary switch (45610) as so:

  • White to neutral
  • Red to traveler
  • Exposed copper to ground

So the diagram looks something on the lines of: Electrical diagram

When I use the primary switch, the light turns on and off as expected. However, when I try using the aux switch, nothing happens. Am I wiring things correctly or is something clearly wrong on what I am doing?

I can mention that the wiring in the two boxes are a little strange. I am however bypassing the second box just to test out the auxiliary switch wiring by placing the two switches together and wiring them side by side. This means that my second electrical box is just bypassed where I put electrical nuts to tie the neutrals together and the load wires together so that the lamp turns on properly.

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  • Wait - Why are there load wires in the second box at all? If there are load wires, they should be wirenutted regardless, since the 45610 has no connection to load (both as you have drawn it and as per antiduh's diagram from the manual.) You might want to show us what the "strange" wiring actually is, or de-strange it and see if things work better.
    – Ecnerwal
    Commented Dec 28, 2013 at 17:11
  • Since you're already testing, the easiest thing might be to go ahead and direct wire a fixture into the load and neutral, and remove the strange wiring from the equation, just to make sure the switches actually work when wired as drawn. If not, defective switch. If so, defective wiring - but at least you'll know which.
    – Ecnerwal
    Commented Dec 28, 2013 at 17:38

2 Answers 2

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After receiving help, I realized that the switches were just faulty and my wiring is correct. I did also consult with an electrician who also told me that 1 in 4 of these switches can be dead on arrival. In my case, 3 of the 3 were dead.

For some more additional information on the dead switches:

  • Measuring with a multimeter of traveler wire to ground.
    • Pressing "off" on auxiliary brings 120V to 95V
    • Pressing "on" on auxiliary brings 120V to 105V

My guess here that the internal wiring of the primary switch was fried and could not interpret these signals, which was my issue.

I'd 100% recommend turning off the power as if you send a 120V through the traveler wire in any way to the primary or the auxiliary switches, you will absolutely fry these switches.

Buying another one of these pairs and wiring them up properly did the trick.

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Taking a look at the manual for the 45610, I'm not sure you've wired the load in correctly:

Wiring diagram

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  • There is no substantive difference between the diagram you copied and the diagram in the question; style, yes, substance, no. The "light bulb" and its connection to neutral are off the left of the diagram (not shown), but it obviously is connected to neutral or it would not light at all. The connections are otherwise exactly as shown in your diagram.
    – Ecnerwal
    Commented Dec 28, 2013 at 17:06
  • I agree with your reasoning, but I see no other fault, other than the strangeness you've already mentioned. Either he doesn't have it wired correctly, the wire is faulty, or the units are faulty. Since the wiring seems like the most likely answer, and his diagram leaves some room for interpretation, I'd sooner give him the explicit right way to do it to let him make sure he's wired it correctly.
    – antiduh
    Commented Dec 28, 2013 at 17:19
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    Thanks guys, it was the switch that was faulty. But it was strange that 3 of the 3 that came were bad. So I went to my local hardware store and picked up another batch of 3. Attached those and they worked perfectly.
    – Steven Lu
    Commented Dec 29, 2013 at 4:56
  • Huh. Go figure.
    – antiduh
    Commented Dec 29, 2013 at 16:02

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