I spent the better part of last night messing with a new 3 way leviton dimmer and remote to no avail.
Finally, I think understand what may need to be done, but the box to control the actual dimmer does not have a neutral that connects directly back to the neutral that enters the original circuit. The switch box does have 4 total light switches in it and a separate hot for another switch as well as a bunch of neutrals wired tied in together. Can I just make a small neutral wire and piggy back my switch to the neutrals of the other switches, or will the dimmer not work?
Thanks for any help~ I"ve also added a diagram of what i plan to do.
I bought GE switches and this was my experience. I had a 3-way setup with a control switch and an “add-on” switch. I did this a few months ago so I’m not 100% on which wire it was but I think it was the “hot” wire. The main (control) switch had 4 wires, hot, neutral, ground and traveler. The add-on switch I believe only had 3 wires and I think they were, ground, neutral and traveler. I couldn’t figure out what the heck to do with the hot wire. I think the directions were vague but I ended up using a wire nut to connect the two hot wires together and the switched worked. There is a hot wire that comes from the electrical panel and there was a hot wire that went over to the other switch. I connected these two and got it working.
I can’t speak to the Leviton setup so please do be careful when trying to figure this out. 120 isn’t too bad but still not fun when you get juiced.
As always, no guarantee or warranty and I’m not an electrician.
Main switch:
Black: Line from panel. You must also pull a hot to the remote switch.
White: Neutral, and a neutral must go to the outlet and to the remote switch.
Ground: Ground to everything.
Yellow/Red: The line between the remote switch and the master switch
Red: Goes to the outlet. (Load)
Remote switch:
Black: Line from panel
White: Neutral
Ground: Ground
Yellow/Red: Connects to red wire on main switch
Notice there is no load? The main switch gets instructions from the remote switch but controls the load.
With your wiring diagram, you short the blacks and skip the outlet and you run a third conductor from the main switch to the outlet’s brass terminal (hot) and you have to have another conductor between the two switches so that the remote can control the main switch.
