A Different GE Switch Wiring Question - Seperate Interconnect for comm/traveler

[vseven (Allan)]

So here is the situation. I have a GE dimmer at the bottom of my basement stairs that does the basement lights. At the opposite end of the basement (30 feet from this switch) I have what the builder called a media room with a double door entry (no doors currently). I’m turning this into a bedroom, studding out half the opening, and putting in a door. I want to add a GE 3-way add on outside this new bedroom but the basement is finished. However I do have a light for that room a couple feet away that I can draw Hot/Neutral/Ground from and I do have a PVC pipe that I had put in to get from the utility room (adjoining wall to the new bedroom) to a storage room (adjoining wall of the other switch).

So my question is has anyone ran a single wire between the “traveler” side of the GE switches? I’m assuming since it has a big no 120v sticker that its low voltage communications. I’m hoping to run a small 18ga wire between the two switches to do the communication but have them powered independantly.

[TonyFleisher]

The ge add-on switch is low voltage and is connected only to traveler, neutral, and ground.
That being said, I’m not sure it would be a good idea (or would even work) to connect to neutral from a different circuit.

[JDRoberts]

Why don’t you just use one of the virtual 3 ways instead? That way you don’t have to worry about the traveler wire and the neutral can be on a different circuit.

[vseven (Allan)]

The ge add-on switch is low voltage and is connected only to traveler, neutral, and ground.
That being said, I’m not sure it would be a good idea (or would even work) to connect to neutral from a different circuit.

The main issue is I have no way of passing “high voltage” from one side to the other properly (secured, etc). Neutral should be common throughout the house as should ground which means the real question is how much voltage is on the traveler. If its a low voltage signal I would think it should work.

Why don’t you just use one of the virtual 3 ways instead? That way you don’t have to worry about the traveler wire and the neutral can be on a different circuit.

Yeah, I thought about that. Maybe just putting another dimmer in and using SmartLighting to make the other switch match and not hook it up. If it was a on/off I would do that but I want the ability to dim from either side and I don’t think its going to be very fluid from the remote switch. But a add on switch right now from Lowes is $13 and I already have the 18ga wire so I was hoping to just use that. Then again I might not want to put low voltage wire into a high voltage box. Hrm.

[vseven (Allan)]

So the more I think about this the more I don’t know if it matters if I have dimming control on that side, it would be more of for someone just to turn the lights off going into that room. And with that said I’m thinking I might just use one of the new SmartThings buttons, with it and the GE switch both running local it should be pretty quick reaction and I already picked one up for something else so I can at least test that.

Still might test one of the switches and see what kind of voltage is on that traveler wire. I really think my initial idea should work.

[ritchierich (Michael)]

I’m assuming since it has a big no 120v sticker that its low voltage communications.

Unfortunately bad assumption. The traveler wire on the GEs is actually 120v. The sticker is there just to tell you no mains power to that terminal. But to make the aux switches work, they use 120v.