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/diy/ - Do It Yourself

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1493870 No.1493870 [Reply] [Original]

Troubleshooting a miswired 3 way switch.

I understand wiring but not 3 way switches in particular.

I repl,aced the old ones on the stairs with a pair of new ones and somehow screwed up.


If the bottom switch is "up", the one upstairs works fine.

When the bottom switch is "down", the upstairs one doesn't work.

Whioch one is wired wrong?

>> No.1493891

Your brain

Call an electrician

>> No.1493895

>>1493891
/thread

>> No.1493896

>>1493870
Did you try googling it? They're not that complicated, if you're okay with wiring you should catch on pretty quickly.

>> No.1493900
File: 29 KB, 398x320, fucked up wiring.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
1493900

You will notice that two of the terminal screws on the switch are brass, and the third is dark brown. The hot wire goes on brown screw on one switch, and the switch leg goes on the brown screw on the other switch. The brass screws are only for the travelers.

>> No.1493969

>>1493900
>that picture
is this real? holy shit

>> No.1493974

>>1493870
Red goes to common. Assuming your house is wired correctly.

>> No.1493976

>>1493900
This. And to re-phrase: connect the two brass screws on one switch to the two brass screws on the other.
The white, or neutural does NOT get attached to switches.

>> No.1494092

>>1493870
Your bottom switch is wired wrong. Or the top one.

Think of this < as a switch.

(Live input wire)-<========>---(Light)----Neutral.

So what you need is to figure out which switch is incoming live. Then connect according to the drawing above. Live<travelerx2>light.

>> No.1494197

>>1493976
>The white, or neutural does NOT get attached to switches.

on a 3 way setup the red and white can be traveler wires and the black is hot. it depends on several factors like where the power source is and which box is comes into. there are several ways to connect 3 way switches. sometimes the white is used as a traveler.

you dont know shit shutup kid

>> No.1494206
File: 108 KB, 960x720, proper_grounding.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
1494206

>>1493969
I didnt take the picture. A fellow electrician sent it to me. It sure is a mess though, isn't it?

Check out this one.

>> No.1494236

>>1493870
black always goes on black lug (where the white wire is, red and white swap on other switch, aka red on single screw side here means white on single side screw there.

Don't questions the little gnomes inside that somehow do voodoo and make the power flow thru them both.

>> No.1494284

>>1494197
Only if house is wired wrong (? we have different color coding here) and white is hot. You wire hot to the switches, not the neutral.

>> No.1494297

>>1494284
Not the Anon you responded to, but he's right. This issue depends on so much that OP hasn't given us, there's really no way to diagnose it from that one pic. We would need to know how many fixtures are between the switches, where the power enters the circuit, when the circuit was wired... Someone, whether it's OP or an electrician, probably needs to slap a meter on the circuit at the very least, and if it's OP then he needs to educate himself about three way switches first. He will not learn what he needs to know from this thread.

>> No.1494307
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1494307

>>1493870

3 way switches should have one 'common' contact, one '1' contact and one '2' contact.

One '1' should be wired to another '1', and one '2' should be connected to another '2'. The 'common' from one switch should be connected to mains and the 'common' of the other should be connected to one of the appliance's contact and the other appliance's contact should go to neutral.

Do as the picture I included in the post.
Depending on the maker the contacts could also be named 'c', '1' and '2' or 'a', 'b' and 'c'. Remember that c is the common.

There should be a diagram of some sort on the other side of the switch you took the photo of, or the contacts should be marked near the screws or plates.

>> No.1494351

>>1494297
No, you never, in any circumstances wire neutral instead of hot to the switch. At most you can wire both in some switches.

>> No.1494354
File: 22 KB, 1536x864, over 9000 hours.png [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
1494354

first time using paint in years.

you hooked up the hot to a leg terminal screw

>> No.1494373

>>1494351
Not saying you wire neutral to a switch. I'm saying you can use the white wire in a three wire cable (normally the neutral in the states) as a traveler (which would be hot) between three way switches. This was perfectly acceptable, and within code, as of ten years ago, as long as you marked it as hot by using either black paint or black electrical tape. I can't say if it's still code, but I know for 100% sure it used to be.

>> No.1494471

>>1494197
When you use white as a traveller, you put black ink or tape on it to avoid mistaking it as a neutural. I repeat - neutural, or the white from the source, does not ever go to a switch. Any switch. It cant be clearer than that, you ignoramous.

>> No.1494489

>>1494206
lold

>> No.1494580

>>1494373
This I can agree with.

>> No.1494595

>>1493870
Four way switches are a lot trickier

>> No.1494613

>>1494595
No more than 2 is ever necessary. Jewish electricians came up with the idea of 4 way switches to trick the goyim into buying 7 miles of romex.

>> No.1494637

>>1494206
fake and gay

>> No.1494648

>>1493870
Hots on the gold screws white on the silver-doesn’t work, switch the hots