I’m wondering if someone can help me who has a GE three-way Z wave add on switch. I have successfully installed the master switch, but I’m having trouble with the ad on switch. My old current switch has 4 wires: a red traveler, a white neutral a black load and a ground wire.
But the GE add-on switch has only spots for a neutral, a traveler, and the ground. What am I supposed to do it the black load wire? I’ve tried doing nothing with it (Just putting a wire nut on it) But that didn’t help.
I know the master switch is working fine because I have the little blue light. Here are pictures of my old switch set up. How would I wire my add on?
There’s a lot of other factors here…how is your master switch wired? Where does the load wire to the light go…is it in the slave switch box, or the master switch box?
In 3-way configurations, sometimes the “normal” color coding doesn’t hold true. You’re saying the black wire is load…but are you sure? It could be a traveler. White also may not be a neutral. Really need to see the wiring of the master switch to help.
So here is a shot of the master switch. The bottom black wire is the line wire coming from the circuit breaker. And I’m pretty sure the red is the traveler on the top and the black one on the top is the load.
Ok so white is neutral in both locations, that’s good. You likely have 2 travelers…one red and one black. Which one did you attach to the Traveler lug on the GE master switch?
Now that I look again…I’m actually thrown off by the white wire being attached to the old 3-way switch. Not sure what’s going on there…?
I attached the red one to the traveler on the master. Also attached the red red one to traveled add-on. I left the black one not connected to anything on the add-on.
Here’s what I’m thinking you are dealing with…if this is the case, you can’t rely on wire colors to tell you hot and neutral. Do you have a multimeter available to probe the wires and see what’s what?
This is not correct and how 3 way switches work. Cannot see given tape around your switches, but one screw is the “common” that is black or bronze in color. In a 3+ way, one of the 3 way switches will have line from breaker and the other will have load to fixture. I see your second switch has all 14-3 wires on the switch so both load and line are in your master switch box.
Trace back where the red wire is coming from and tell me what that black wire within that Rolex is hooked to.
That would work to power the fixture and get you a traveler, but you’d be short a neutral. If this picture is accurate I think you’ll need to change some wiring around in the fixture as well to get the neutral over to the slave switch location.
Please bare with me, I have helped tons of people here get their switches working.
Trace that red wire in your master location. I bet it is hooked into a bundle of wires. Thus “sending” power to your aux location. This means the black wire hooked to the black screw on your master location is your load.
in the add-on switch that i bought, in the box, there is a short segment of white wire provided. Could i use that to connect the add-on switch neutral port to the black and white ones that i wire-nut together?
Again, if the picture is accurate to how you are wired, you don’t have a neutral at the slave location. Just because the wire is white doesn’t mean it’s a neutral. I think @ritchierich is on to something, grab the information he’s asking for and let’s see where that goes.
But I’m not seeing a neutral in the slave location. The GE add-on won’t work without a neutral. I’ll defer to you though, sounds like you’ve done more of this than I have.
The red wire at my master location goes into Romax at the top. And I’m pretty sure that the black wire that screwed into the black screw is line from the breaker Because it is also flowing to an adjacent switch, and
Also @eric182 go ahead and unscrew that switch beside your master. We will need to get to the wires in the back. Please take a clear photo of the box so I can see the wires.
