Any electricians in the hizzie
- Thread starter Toxick
- Start date
TPD
the poor dad
very possible that its just a loose wire. pull the plate off then take out the 2 screws holding the light switch. Pull switch out of box - if loose wires that are not obvious, you may see flickering lights. Of course obvious loose wires will be obvious....
Toxick
Splat
Nothing is the matter. I'm redoing some stuff in my house, and I'm changing my "On/Off" lightswitch to a Zigbee Keypad Dimmer switch.
I am not sure how to make this adjustment.
Trying to change this:
to this:
Toxick
Splat
No, there's no trouble. My switch as-is works.
I do not, however, subscribe to the "if it ain't broke don't fix it" school of thought.
It totally works - and I'm totally gonna fix it anyway.
Eventually, that light switch will control my back porch light, my living room light, and choose the media being run in my living room.
I can do all the other stuff. I just need to know how to connect the load to the main toggle switch.
Does that switch control two different lights?
Toxick
Splat
No... just the one.
And it's going to stay that way, for all intents and purposes.
All of the other buttons on that keypad dimmer will be managed elsewhere. And I got that part covered. All I need to do is set that top button to toggle the current load like it currently does.
Okay. So the black is daisy chained from that box to somewhere else besides the circuit breaker.
The red was also throwing me off. I normally only see those in three-way light switches.
The red was also throwing me off. I normally only see those in three-way light switches.
Clem72
Well-Known Member
Probably replaced a 3-way, that's why there's a jumpered hot line.
Toxick
Splat
So I'm looking at a jury rigged pile of crap.
I found later that there's also a neutral wire all the way at the back of the gangbox. I guess that's coming in from the load and going back to the box without touching the switch? I don't know enough to deal with non-conventional stuff.
I guess I should take a course on household wiring before touching this one.
That's not unusual. The switch just breaks the hot line. How many neutral wires do you see back at the wire nut... 2 or 3?
All you need to do if figure out which black wire comes from the circuit breaker and ignore the other. Unless the answer to my question above is 3.
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Toxick
Splat
Looks like 2. That box has power again and I'm not sticking my fingers in there right now to double check - but it looks like 2.
But I think I need to tap into that neutral line because that new switch has LEDs in it which are powered by hot and neutral. So, eventually I'll have to yank it out of there and adjust it someway.
Unless that adds too much crap to jam in that little box - which is possible because the keypad dimmer takes up more space than the rocker switch. In which case, screw it. I'm not changing out the box.
Easy enough. I got a voltage detector that should tell me what's what. I'll play with that later.
So the two black wires connected to that one terminal are the incoming hot, and a line that feeds off to somewhere else - and then the red line goes out to the load.
TPD
the poor dad
I would rather you post pictures from your vintage National Geographic magazines from the 80s.....
Glad you jumped in to help. I was all ready to explain my expert 110/220 wiring techniques. I'm particularly skilled when it comes to wiring in emergency generators,
LightRoasted
If I may ...
If I may ...
Also, break out a multi-meter and check to ensure that there is no current at all in any of the wires before proceeding.
What is shown in that picture is definitely not to code. Those two hot/black wires should have been pig-tailed together with a lead coming out then to the switch. But what is also weird is that there is no neutral/white wire to that switch, only two hot wires, and no ground wire either. In either case, you will have to use the neutral wire that has been pig-tailed and shoved into the back of the box.
Also, break out a multi-meter and check to ensure that there is no current at all in any of the wires before proceeding.
