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🔌General Home Automation => Automating Your House => Troubleshooting Automation Problems => Topic started by: Brandt on February 26, 2010, 07:25:18 PM

Title: 3-way switch installation problems
Post by: Brandt on February 26, 2010, 07:25:18 PM
Installing x10 switches on 1-way has been easy, but I tried to replace 2 different sets of 3-way setups today and I could not get it working for the life of me. I ended up installing master switches on both ends of it, instead of a master and slave.

The switches I have are PCS SSIL/S-600 for the master dimmers, and lightolier osr-3 for the slaves

Starting with the 1st 3-way setup:

When I removed the regular switches they both had red and black wires on the top and a black wire on the bottom marked common. The ground and neutral (white) were not used. These three way circuits are the only place in the house where red wires appear, so I assume the red wire is the traveler wire that goes between the two J boxes.

Starting with the master PCS switch, It has a black, red, white, yellow, and bare ground wire.
The slave osr-3 has a gray, yellow, black, and bare ground wire.

On the slave I hooked the gray to ground, yellow to red traveler, black to all the black wires, and bare ground to ground.
On the master I hooked up the yellow to the red traveler, black to all the black wires that were line, white to white, and red to the black wire that I assume is load.

So when finished the master switch worked perfectly, but the slave switch gave problems. When I turned the lights off with the slave, the slave lost its power (led went out) and I could not turn anything back on after that.

I ended up using master switches on both ends and that's probably not a good idea, but it *kinda* works for now.

Please help! I don't want to be bitched at by the rest of the family!!!!   B:(
Title: Re: 3-way switch installation problems
Post by: Charles Sullivan on February 27, 2010, 11:58:33 AM

I suggest you first wire up a test system on the benchtop so you can see exactly which wires are connected to which wires.  Once you've verified it works properly you can then address the problem of figuring out which wires are connected to which wires in your walls.
Title: Re: 3-way switch installation problems
Post by: Brandt on February 27, 2010, 07:42:27 PM
I got it figured out...

You're suppose to wire the slave on LINE before the master, not after the master...