What makes you think this is the slave box?
Are yoybsure yiu identified all your wires correctly?
Does not look like the slave to me.
From descriptions on this site I thought I had to master slave correct but now I donāt know anymore. The master shouldnāt have all 3 wires coming out of 1 Romex though right?
While technically this will work, itās not by code. Red wire can only be used for switched power (or traveler). Black wire can be used either for line or switched power and white for neutral. You cannot wire togather white with red or white with black unless you use electrical tape of proper color to cover the visible color of the wire.
For 3-way switch wiring you need this:
- At the master, Line (black), neutral (white), ground (bare) and traveller (red). Also load (black or red) to the light. I assume you have neutral and ground at the light.
- At the slave: neutral (white), ground (bare) and traveller (red) all coming from the master.
You can add a secondary slave if you need to and wire it with same wires as first slave.
Edit: this is for z-wave wiring.
The master should be the source for the common. It will be the box with the wire that is live when disconnected from everything.
Go back to the top of this thread and reread how to find the hot and neutral wires.
What is the other switch to? Does it still work? (Donāt assume they were wired the same way. How you wire a 3 way most of the time is determined by the physical location of each item in the circuit. If the house is new, it may not look like anything you normally see online. (Apparently smart switches had become a big enough problem, read people using ground, that the NEC addressed this a few years ago)
The other switch is the garage light and it works. Itās wired differently obviously since itās a single pole.
A standard 3 way switch is a single pole. (SPDT)
Did you find the live wire? Lets start there.
Just curious on how you determined that you have the above wiring configuration?
Can you also take some pictures of the other box as well. Try including the switch and the switch terminals with the wires as well.
Thank you for the advices @NomadTech.
Alright, I know I donāt have a reputation for intelligence, but these questions need some sort of answer.
- What wire in that bundle is live/hot? You can determine this by (turning off the circuit) separating all the wires (maybe not ground), make sure they arenāt touching and (turn the circuit back on) test each one for voltage. Red probe to wire, black probe to ground or just use a volt pen.
- It looks like there are two switches in that box, when you turn off the circuit, do they both stop working?
- In the picture provided, are you placing the switch on the left or the right? Iām assuming itās the left because the wires are spaced apart more but clarification would do well.
Also, need pictures of the other box with switch and terminals. I get that you donāt care if you use the slave but [I think] there is relevance. The more information you can provide, the better. Part of my mistake was sort of assuming people knew which box I was talking about.
Iām including one of my terrible box diagrams because for me it takes a minute to figure out everything going on in the box. If it is inaccurate, let me know and Iāll take it down right away.
You should have this
You need this
Just disregard the rightmost z-wave add-on switch (slave).
I get the filing that youāre getting confused. Best bet (in my opinion) is to disconnect all wires (after flipping the breaker), remove switches and see if you have all needed wires in those 2 boxes. Then wire the z-wave switches like in the above picture. Keep also in mind that power can come from breaker directly or from the adjacent switch and that in a standard 3-way configuration you always have a hot wire in both boxes - one from power and one from the other switch.
Click like if I have helped you.
Do you think this will work on my set up?
My main switch have the following:
black common hot/line
black traveler wire
red traveler wire
white neutral bundled together
My Slave or dumb switch
white common load
black traveler
red traveler
My problem is I don have a neutral on the 2nd switch. If I connect the white wire to the white wire to make it neutral, will it work?
Also the black wire on the 1st switch to make it load. So the 1st switch will control the on and off like a single pole switch does and the red traveler wire will be the communication wire. This is the only way I can think of to make the add on switch work on the second switch. Or else I have to fish a wire to make a neutral on the second or dummy switch. There will be no load wire on the second switch.
The only way to get this working is for you to change the wiring in your fixtures. Is that possible?
See this thread for other ideas. There are some brands that donāt require neutrals
Your proposed configuration looks exactly like what you need to do. See the FAQ posted above. It contains the exact situation you are showing line-switch-load-load-switch.