I have now installed several devices and am excited to continue, but am stuck trying to wire my GE Z-Wave Wireless Lighting Control Three-Way Dimmer Kit 45613. Any help would be appreciated. I have pictures of my current switches and labelled the wires that came up as hot using my voltage tester, but the systems says as a new user I cannot post them. I might need an electrician, unless anyone can help tell me how to wire from the info below:
Existing Switch 1:
Black - Hot
Black (attached to black load screw)
Red
Ground
2 White wires are in the box with a wire nut holding them together
It sounds like you will have to rearrange the wires a bit. Can you tell if the light is between these two switches or if it comes off of one of them? You will want switch 1 to connect to the line and the load, then take the neutral from the bundle and connect it to both switch 1 and to a white wire going to switch 2. Then attach the red to the traveler on switch 1 and make sure it goes to the traveler on switch 2. This may require changing the connection at the light if it is currently wired in between the two switches. You’ll then want to cap off the black wire going to switch 2 at both ends, as it is not needed.
Sorry. I didn’t edit fast enough. You might want to drop the light fixture because I think your light neutral is white and going box 2 like @obycode said. How do you know the white in box 2 is hot?
Before I post a modified drawing and burn down your house. Let’s check something to be sure. If you put the voltage tester on black wire at box 2. Light on will give you voltage and no voltage with light off. Try both light switches should give you the same result.
On box one. The line will always with voltage and the red and the other black will be opposite to each other when flipping the switches. If that’s what you got then here is the mod drawing below. Not sure about your local electrical code but I would go this route if I have a million light fixtures and don’t know where is the one connecting to the switch.
I would label all the wires for the poor guy that will be dealing with this later. Also if you have an old house with ground and neutral bonded then this might not work depend on your light fixture.
Thank you for all of your help. I don’t feel confident with these 3-ways and I have a4 -way, so I called an electrician. I’ll post the result when he finishes - probably next week.
Folks - I have wired several of the new GE 3-way switches with model numbers 12724 and 12723 (aux) successfully, including a 4-way setup. I had no success trying to do the same with the older 45613 and 45610 (aux). The instructions for the 45613 / 45610 say to wire the aux such that they traveler (yellow) is tied to the main traveler - using a red line in my case. This is normal and was no problem. The unusual part is their instructions say to wire the red/white striped line to hot which is then tied to the same hot as the main switch. On the main switch you have to wire white to neutral and black to hot and Blue to the Load (line that goes to the light bulb). I confirmed this using my multi-meter and an adjacent hot line. Anyway, after doing all this I still couldn’t get this darned thing to work. I wrote back to ask for a refund and will go with the newer units which I know work. If anyone else has gotten the older model to work I would love to hear how you did it. I troubleshot mine for hours with a multimeter and was convinced I had it wired up right and still no cigar. On the other hand I had no trouble replacing this with the newer ones. Oddly enough the aux switch on the newer model doesnt use HOT - it only uses the traveler and neutral. All that switch does is passively pull down the voltage on the traveler to neutral and vice versa as a signal to the main switch. Since the older one says to wire it to HOT I have no clue how it works. Maybe pulls the traveller up instead of down? Anyway I couldn’t get it to work. By the way, there is a wiring diagram in the instructions book that shows how these are supposedly to be wired and it shows a shared HOT line and a tied together traveler. weird.
This is typical of a wired Zwave aux, and makes sense: the aux is essentially just a remote for the master.
Since the older GEs have been discontinued anyway, for any new installs I would go with the newer models if you want GE. Of course those do require a neutral.
There is still one Cooper being made that does not require a neutral. But it won’t control LEDs.
Yup - the newer model arrived and installed perfectly first time. All is not lost because I am using the main switch from the older model as a regular one-way and it works fine in that mode. The pair was cheaper than a single one-way anyway so I don’t feel ripped off - although people here should avoid buying these from whoever is dumping old ones on Amazon.
