Befuddled

[thammel]

Existing house wiring has me stumped! I did all my 3 way and 4 way switches in the garage with no problems. So I replaced some outdoor floods with LEDs. I noticed when they were off at night there was still a little light emanating from them, like a night light. How can this be I say? So I dig into it and find voltage (115ac) when the switches are off. Hmm. What's up? I pulled the two 3-way switches out of the boxes, left wires connected and checked and am really befuddled.

One box (#1) has power in and feed to the lights. The other box (#2) has just one 3 wire nm wire into it. The way things are wired seems really weird to me. Box #2 switch has black and white wires to the top 2 screws and the red wire (traveler) to the black bottom screw. This seems correct. However, in Box #1 it appears that power in feeds the black bottom screw and the black from box #2 feeds the top screw above the black bottom screw and the white from box #2 feeds the top screw on the other side. The red wire appears to be connected to the black feeding the lights.

What's weird is that this arrangement seemed to work fine with the older incandescent floods.

I knew something was weird when I was replacing the fixture holding the new led lights. I had the switches in the off position but in changing things the breaker popped. Now, I attributed this to the super sensitive combo arc fault/ground fault breaker. Guess not.

Any help is greatly appreciated!
Thanks,
Tom

 

[wyliesdiesels]

Existing house wiring has me stumped! I did all my 3 way and 4 way switches in the garage with no problems. So I replaced some outdoor floods with LEDs. I noticed when they were off at night there was still a little light emanating from them, like a night light. How can this be I say? So I dig into it and find voltage (115ac) when the switches are off. Hmm. What's up? I pulled the two 3-way switches out of the boxes, left wires connected and checked and am really befuddled.

There is no off position on 3-way and 4-way switches

One box (#1) has power in and feed to the lights. The other box (#2) has just one 3 wire nm wire into it. The way things are wired seems really weird to me. Box #2 switch has black and white wires to the top 2 screws and the red wire (traveler) to the black bottom screw. This seems correct. However, in Box #1 it appears that power in feeds the black bottom screw and the black from box #2 feeds the top screw above the black bottom screw and the white from box #2 feeds the top screw on the other side. The red wire appears to be connected to the black feeding the lights.

power in from panel goes on common/black screw on first switch. travellers between switches go on brass screws

power out to lights goes on common/black screw on second switch.

The black and white between your switches are your travellers. the red is your feed to your lights.

sounds like you have it wired correct but your description was all over the place and hard to follow

perhaps post some pics of both switches and whats in the j box so we can see whats going on

What's weird is that this arrangement seemed to work fine with the older incandescent floods.

I knew something was weird when I was replacing the fixture holding the new led lights. I had the switches in the off position but in changing things the breaker popped. Now, I attributed this to the super sensitive combo arc fault/ground fault breaker. Guess not.

Any help is greatly appreciated!
Thanks,
Tom

again there is no off position on these switches. if youre tripping a breaker, you would have to have a short or ground fault somewhere.

 

[American Locomotive]

It sounds like the neutral side is getting switched. that will often cause LEDs to glow

 

[sparky 1971]

The slang term here for what you have is a backfed three way and even though I found the description next to impossible to follow, I think it's right. It's been done that way by many people for many years, but the only time I've personally done it is when either adding a three way that at one time was only a single pole or when I've forgotten to three way a light on new construction and realize it too late.

I've seen LED's glow in the dark a few times, heard about it even more but most people aren't willing to pay for an after hours service call so I can actually see it happening. Sometimes it's because there's an indicator light in the switch(es), another time it was because of a motion sensor that said right on the box not to use LED lamps. There have been other time's that I've been stumped and chalk it up to induced voltage, I'd be seeing about five volts to neutral and tell the customer to buy better lamps and if that doesn't fix it, call me back.

I'm gonna try reading it again and see if it makes sense.

 

[sparky 1971]

Existing house wiring has me stumped! I did all my 3 way and 4 way switches in the garage with no problems. So I replaced some outdoor floods with LEDs. I noticed when they were off at night there was still a little light emanating from them, like a night light. How can this be I say? So I dig into it and find voltage (115ac) when the switches are off. Hmm. What's up? I pulled the two 3-way switches out of the boxes, left wires connected and checked and am really befuddled.

Depending on the position of the switch, you will have voltage to ground or neutral on one or two of the wires at all times.

One box (#1) has power in and feed to the lights. The other box (#2) has just one 3 wire nm wire into it. The way things are wired seems really weird to me. Box #2 switch has black and white wires to the top 2 screws and the red wire (traveler) to the black bottom screw. This seems correct. However, in Box #1 it appears that power in feeds the black bottom screw and the black from box #2 feeds the top screw above the black bottom screw and the white from box #2 feeds the top screw on the other side. The red wire appears to be connected to the black feeding the lights.

The black and white are the travellers, the red from switch #2 is the switch leg.

What's weird is that this arrangement seemed to work fine with the older incandescent floods.

I knew something was weird when I was replacing the fixture holding the new led lights. I had the switches in the off position but in changing things the breaker popped. Now, I attributed this to the super sensitive combo arc fault/ground fault breaker. Guess not.

It could have very easily been the AFCI function of the breaker. I've installed more than my fair share of fixtures on an AFCI circuit and when I went to turn them on, the breaker was tripped because I'd touched the neutral to the ground.

Any help is greatly appreciated!
Thanks,
Tom

 

[walta]

My guess is the LEDs are getting a very small amount of power when off just enough to light the LEDs. My guess is if there was a 5 watt incandescent lamp or a small resister in the circuit across the LEDs the LEDs would not glow.

My guess is the power is captative coupling thru the wire’s insulation. The LEDs in my master bathroom glow sometimes. I have not been motivated to make it stop.

Walta