electrical gurus: troubleshooting 3-way and a "wireless" switch question

[JordonMusser]

Ok, two in one:

1) I have lights in a hallway(yes, non garage related). 3 switches. Some how they got mis wired. The only time the lights work is when switch 1 is on, switch 2 is on and switch 3 is off. ANY other combination and the lights are off. Any ideas of where to start looking? I have wired 3way systems from scratch, but am not qualified to diagnosis something like this

2) Wireless. I have two switches to turn on all my outdoor lighting. One inside, and one outside. I would like to have the inside switch turn on all the out door stuff. is there a "wireless relay" type scenario where I would not have to actually rewire anything?

TIA!

 

[pattenp]

Re: electrical gurus: troubleshooting 3-way and a "wireless" switch question

On #1, short of using a multimeter and a wire tracer it's going to be tough. Also that switch setup is a 4way.

 

[JordonMusser]

Re: electrical gurus: troubleshooting 3-way and a "wireless" switch question

Yea, that is what I expected. Thanks for the diagram, I will be doing some testing soon...

 

[sparky67]

Re: electrical gurus: troubleshooting 3-way and a "wireless" switch question

Some other hints when wiring 3-ways and 4-ways. The screws are colored if the switches are not really old. On a 3 way the dark colored screw is the one that either gets line power or the light in the drawing pattenp posted, the other two screws go to the wires running to the other switch. On a 4 way there are two dark and two light colored screws. The wires coming from the previous switch go to one color and the wires going to the next switch go to the other color. Usually the mistake people make is that as shown above a three wire switch box usually has two blacks and a red wire. People think that the obvious choice should be the red wire goes to the odd color screws. This will mess things up especially when you have a few 4 ways in the mix. The best way to think about it is the color denotes wires of the same cable.

To make things more complicated the simple drawing above is easy but you can also wire it in such a way that the power wire and light wire run to the same box as the 4-way, or any other box for that matter. Lots of combinations here but basically they no longer use the white wire as a neutral. When done this way the white wire in the 14-3 running to the 3 way switches should be marked black. This really makes figuring out which wire should go under which screw on the 3 way switches more complicated then just checking which cable the wires are coming from.

 

[Milton Shaw]

Re: electrical gurus: troubleshooting 3-way and a "wireless" switch question

Also I have seen the switches with the traveler connections on the same side not the same end. You need to check the box for wiring instructions or back of switch if there are any on it.

 

[eljefino]

Re: electrical gurus: troubleshooting 3-way and a "wireless" switch question

If your three ways suddenly stopped working, I suspect half a switch is bad. In your scenario if switches 1 and 2 are "down" do the lights work?

The problem is noone uses two conductor wire that's red and black; they use standard white/black romex.

For your second question, x10.com makes switches that take the place of regular switches and send signals thru the wires to power and depower other stuff.