I am hoping that someone more electrically inclined can help me. I have a three way hall light that has two light fixtures. I have tried to read up on how to wire this correctly but I haven’t been able to find a similar wiring scenario to what I have.
This is what I believe is the main switch. In this box I saw that a black and white wire are tied together which I think is running to the other switch to supply power.
This is where the add on switch should go but I am unsure of how to wire it since it does not look like I have a neutral. The white wire looks to be acting as the line in power and also looks to be the end of the run since there are no other wires leaving the box.
Can you tell if any of your setup is like any of the setups on this page? If so, what number do you have?
**EDIT: I DELETED A LOT OF WHAT I WROTE - I reread your post and caught that you said you have two fixtures - determining how these are wired together is very important.
I recently installed these. It’s very important that you wire it up per the instructions that are inside the addon switch. Make sure you know which wall switch is the master, you will only have a hot coming in from the breaker to the master. What I did, was take pictures of how it is wired, then removed both switches. I have a pencil thing that detects ac voltage, you will only have voltage at one switch. That is your main. Then looking at the diagrams provided, itentify your lines and install… it’s not to hard.
Sorry, just gotta thrown in, make sure you turn the breaker off before unwire the switches, and making sure no wires are touching then turn the breaker back on to determine the hot (should be the bottom right of one of the switches. If you try with the old switches in, you might not get the right results because of the traveler wires.
#5 or #6 would be closest but my common wires are all tied together and not to the switch, and I’ll have to pull off the two light fixtures to see how they are wired. I’ll post back when I get the fixtures off.
You know which one is your line. It looks like the upper left romex is your load. Cap both ends of the black wire in the traveler romex. Neutral for the add-on comes from the main box.
I’ll pull off the fixtures later tonight to see how they are wired and report back. I had another three way in the living room that was wired similarly with the black and white wired together in the main box. What I did there was wire the black and white together in the add on switch box and then tied into rest of the white common wires and it works great. My problem here I think is that the add on box has no common for me to use.
You have 3 wires going to the add on, and you only need two (neutral and traveler) - so there is a possibility that one wire could be tied to the neutrals over at the other box which would then givie you a neutral at the add on.
Please excuse my crappy paint diagram, but after looking at the light fixtures I added in their wiring. Not sure how it all connects to the actual switches but my best guess is that the power is going to the switch first and then the lights.
So after staring at my picture for a while I came up with this, let me know if this is totally off or if I’m close.
Edit: Ninja edited my picture to make more sense I think.
Close. You also cap the black wire bundled with the traveler at the main box. You can also join the white in this bundle to the neutral at the switch. It has a space for two wires.
edit: i think you changed the drawing to what i just said haha. Drawing now looks correct. Only think i’d change is to put the hot wire in a wire nut instead of all at the switch. Then pigtail off that.
Hey guys, hope I’m not breaking any rules by bumping this old thread. I’ve been racking my brain for two days trying to understand this 3 way wiring stuff, unsuccessfully I might add. I’ve searched every forum, every diagram, every diy source. The closest I could find was here in this thread, option #5 but instead of the black wires nutted together my white wires are nutted together in the first box. The only wire that has power when both switches are disconnected is the white wire in the second box. Can I wire up a GE gen 2 smart switch with this set up? Do I need to add a relay? Should I get a switch that doesn’t require a neutral wire? Should I just rewire the whole thing to make it smart switch friendly?
