![]() “Th qick broen fox jumpedd over the lazy dog.” The same reason English speakers can read the following without difficulty: In any case, you want to pay attention to both the wires and the screws.įor this reason, I highly recommend taking photos of the existing wiring before you detach anything, including showing the screws where the wires attached.Įverybody thinks, “I have a very good memory, I know how it was” but the mind will tend to try to fit things into orderly patterns and often misses in cases like these. On the other hand, the screws on the switch are usually color-coded by the manufacturer, so those are a little more likely to be reliable. They may then tape or tag a wire with the other color, but there’s no guarantee that will be done at the end that you’re looking at. Two more thoughts: wire color is never guaranteed, electricians all too often grab whatever color is to hand. Three ways are always confusing! I find that many people instinctively want to make the master the first in the circuit (closest to the circuit box), but in fact as both your diagram and the GE diagrams show, it often (although not always) makes sense to have the master last on the circuit (closest to the light). I hope this help those on the fence… enjoy! If connecting 9 wires excites your happy place, the term “pigtail” makes you giggle and electrical tape is your friend then… Let’s Get Wired Up! Ultimately, if any of this makes you feel uncomfortable or the wiring diagrams makes your eyes cross… CALL YOUR LOCAL ELECTRICIAN! They are there to help! Bad wiring causes fires and other glitchy weirdness you don’t want in your home. Also Yes there will be some slight differences on weather or not to pigtail (a short wire that leads from the switch to the yellow caps) the load and/or line but your ground and neutral should ALWAYS be pigtailed. Different manufactures handle 3-ways differently. Follow your brands wiring diagram completely. Getting this wrong can cause the automated switch not to work and can even trip a circuit breaker. It is very important to know which of your old switches are handling Primary or Auxiliary function and the function of each wire. This is a diagram of what you’re automated hardwired 3-way light switch setup should generally look like when you are done. If this is what you see when you remove your wall plate you are a go for hardwired automated light switchs. ![]() It protects from static build up and from electrical insulation failure, in short it’s only job is to make your home safer. The bare (hopefully) solid copper wire is the ground. The black “hot” connection is broken to turn the light on/off, the white “neutral” connection completes the circuit and the red “traveler” connected the 2 switches allowing either switch to control the on/off state. This is a diagram of a 3-way switch with a neutral. It’s not as expensive as you think and will save you lots of frustration. This is not good for automated hardwired light switchs and i would HIGHLY recommend that if you want to automate the light, contact an electrician and have them pull a neutral for you. This is a diagram of a 3-way switch with the neutral run directly to the light. For those of us using LED, Fluorescent or some other energy efficient bulbs under 20w a neutral is REQUIRED! Yes, there are a few…(read very, very, very few) switches that don’t require a neutral, but those will limit you to incandescent only. The most common wiring requirements of any hardwired automated 3-way light switch is a neutral wire and a traveler. Well you’re in the right place for a 3-way. So you want an automated hardwired light switch, but you’re not sure where to start, and you need 2 switches to control the same light.
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