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I’ve been replacing all the old yellow toggles in our house with new white rockers. It’s been trivial so far but now I’m looking at the 3 way switches at each end of a hall and I can’t reconcile how it’s currently wired. Anyone smarter help? This is the old switch instructions, based on what’s stamped into the switches. https://images.homedepot-static.com/catalog/pdfImages/81/81d6a32b-99ce-4f2c-9177-51b0ffd15fb3.pdf These are pics of the current wiring:  
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May 6, 2020 23:26
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Faustian Bargain posted:I’ve been replacing all the old yellow toggles in our house with new white rockers. It’s been trivial so far but now I’m looking at the 3 way switches at each end of a hall and I can’t reconcile how it’s currently wired. Anyone smarter help? It looks like the wiring matches what's on the install guide, except that for some ungodly reason your lines from the panel and to the light are white wires instead of black.
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May 6, 2020 23:51
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TacoHavoc posted:It looks like the wiring matches what's on the install guide, except that for some ungodly reason your lines from the panel and to the light are white wires instead of black. It's because it's an old house and it's part of a switch loop. I don't even need any more information to be 98% sure of this.
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May 7, 2020 00:17
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TacoHavoc posted:It looks like the wiring matches what's on the install guide, except that for some ungodly reason your lines from the panel and to the light are white wires instead of black. https://images.homedepot-static.com/catalog/pdfImages/ed/eddb2327-332a-4ff9-82dc-004f697b82b9.pdf Motronic posted:It's because it's an old house and it's part of a switch loop. I don't even need any more information to be 98% sure of this. edit: Okay so I took both diagrams and put them into 1 image. Looks like the red and black are just straight up connections across the switches. These would be the #2 connections in the new diagram. One white goes to each of the bottom-right connections, as #1. Is this correct? Sometimes it just helps to take a step back and talk it out. Faustian Bargain fucked around with this message at 00:30 on May 7, 2020 |
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May 7, 2020 00:21
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TacoHavoc posted:It looks like the wiring matches what's on the install guide, except that for some ungodly reason your lines from the panel and to the light are white wires instead of black. This is normal. I guess ideally it'd be marked non-white with tape, but there's really no reason to mark it since it's obvious it's not a neutral. The black wire, which is landed on the black screw of the old switch, needs to go to the black screw on the new switch (marked as "common terminal" in your instructions). The red and white are travelers and can be interchangeably landed on the gold or silver screws. The ground wire goes to the green screw. edit: drat it, spoke too soon and not sure what's up with the second pic, so disregard what I said about the black wire; just land whatever is currently on the black screw to the new black screw. Blackbeer fucked around with this message at 01:33 on May 7, 2020 |
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May 7, 2020 01:26
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Blackbeer posted:The black wire, which is landed on the black screw of the old switch, needs to go to the black screw on the new switch (marked as "common terminal" in your instructions). The red and white are travelers and can be interchangeably landed on the gold or silver screws. The ground wire goes to the green screw. I'm pretty sure that the red and the BLACK are the travelers, and the white is the load.
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May 7, 2020 07:22
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Faustian Bargain posted:You can barely see this in the pic so it's not clear, but on the back of the old switch, where the white wires are connected, it's marked as common. You’ve got it. Newer P&S 3 ways have the common termination on the top right (as you look at it when installed) and I was hasty and confusing.
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May 7, 2020 16:46
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Looks like I'm jumping into the thread at a good point in the conversation. I've got a 3way switch setup in my house too, and it's even older than Faustian's. (His 3way switch has four wires, mine has three.) There's a light fixture on the second floor on the 3way setup, with a switch at the top and bottom of the stairs. What I'd like to do is add a second light to the circuit, so that I end up with a light at both the top and bottom of the stairs, both controlled by the same two switches. Flip either switch, and both lights turn on or off. Sounds reasonable enough. I pull up a diagram of a 3way switch, do some hard thinking, and realize I can just put the new light in series with the existing light. In this diagram, I'd be putting the new light fixture on the dotted black line.  Today I get the new light fixture, get it installed, and wire it all up. Turns out, only one light ever turns on, regardless of which wire I put the new fixture on. After re-consulting the diagram above, I realize the switch I'm trying to connect the new fixture to is the one on the left, not the one on the right. Hrm. Looking at this diagram, it SEEMS like the answer is to wire the new fixture into the white line, rather than the dotted black. That would accomplish the same goal of putting the new fixture in series with the existing fixture. Except, where IS the white wire in my actual house? I replaced the gang box adjacent to the new fixture location and I only ever saw three wires (in the diagram above, the two black and the red on the left switch). You're going to say "your house doesn't have a neutral line, so you don't have the white wire in the above diagram." Fair enough. But in that scenario, the line from the panel has to come into my downstairs switch. And if that's true, I should have been able to put the new fixture in series with the line from the panel, and been able to get both fixtures working. I basically have two questions: what the hell is going on, and is there any way to wire the new fixture to the left switch that will achieve proper functionality? (That doesn't involve running a cable from the new fixture to either the old fixture or the other switch, since both of those are upstairs, and that's just not happening)
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May 7, 2020 23:33
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The Wonder Weapon posted:Looks like I'm jumping into the thread at a good point in the conversation. Restore it to the original configuration, then just attach your second light to the first light at the first light's box.
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May 7, 2020 23:56
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kid sinister posted:Restore it to the original configuration, then just attach your second light to the first light at the first light's box. Ah, but that runs afoul of my "no running a cable from the new fixture to either the old fixture or the other switch" rule. Practically, that involves running a cable through the ceiling and down a flight of stairs, which is just too big of a job for me at this juncture.
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May 8, 2020 00:11
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The Wonder Weapon posted:
There is no neutral connection available in either of your switches. Also, hell no you cannot connect loads in series. Put everything back like it was. Then either run a cable from the old fixture to the new fixture, connecting black to black and white to white, or forget about this project because you're going to end up doing something dangerous.
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May 8, 2020 00:12
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shame on an IGA posted:There is no neutral connection available in either of your switches. Also, hell no you cannot connect loads in series. Put everything back like it was. Then either run a cable from the old fixture to the new fixture, connecting black to black and white to white, or forget about this project because you're going to end up doing something dangerous. There's a neutral at both switch boxes with this layout.
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May 8, 2020 00:31
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edit: drat it, I'm an idiot who can't read. Blackbeer fucked around with this message at 00:42 on May 8, 2020 |
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May 8, 2020 00:32
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The diagram is correct, but the poster explicitly said they wanted to add a light in series instead of doing it the correct way and adding it in parallel to the existing load.
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May 8, 2020 00:39
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I hadn't thought too much about putting them in series, since it's just two 16w fixtures. If it's dangerous it's dangerous, and I can accept that. I'm just surprised, I guess. I mean, I'm pretty sure my garage has two light bulb sockets and a receptacle all in series, as seen here: (installed by PO) Beyond the series/parallel concern, you can see my hallway below. The new light fixture is intended to be in the ceiling at the bottom of the stairs, which is shrouded in darkness in this photo (hence the need for a new fixture). Running a wire from the existing fixture to there would be a significant investment of time and energy at this juncture. Of course, I already have three small holes cut in the wall at the base of the stairs where I was running the cable for the new fixture to the switch, and also a hole with a new gang box in the ceiling. Not sure what I'd do about the hole in the ceiling if I weren't hooking up a new fixture.  To settle my initial question though: is there no safe way to wire the new fixture to the existing switch at the bottom of the stairs?
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May 8, 2020 01:56
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The Wonder Weapon posted:I hadn't thought too much about putting them in series, since it's just two 16w fixtures. If it's dangerous it's dangerous, and I can accept that. I'm just surprised, I guess. I mean, I'm pretty sure my garage has two light bulb sockets and a receptacle all in series, as seen here: (installed by PO) Those are wired in parallel: both conductors inside that romex are going to each fixture and I can guarantee the fixtures are hooked up in parallel to those conductors. Maybe you're not quite understanding what parallel/series means here? e: Maybe this helps? Series, BAD:  Parallel, GOOD:  In that photo you posted up there, there's one set of wires running from end to end, but the fixtures are wired in to it in parallel as pictured here. The parallel-ness happens inside the junction box. it doesn't mean a whole extra set of conductors from the starting point. Bad Munki fucked around with this message at 02:10 on May 8, 2020 |
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May 8, 2020 01:58
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You could get 2 smart switches (the type that can work without neutrals) and smart bulbs. Rewire the switch boxes to be always on, and use the smart switches to control the smart bulbs. You'd be able to run power to the new fixture from anywhere since it doesn't need to be from a switched box. Edit: you'd still need a neutral for the new fixture though so it couldn't come from the old switch box though. Nevets fucked around with this message at 02:03 on May 8, 2020 |
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May 8, 2020 02:01
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Nevets posted:You could get 2 smart switches (the type that can work without neutrals) and smart bulbs. Rewire the switch boxes to be always on, and use the smart switches to control the smart bulbs. You'd be able to run power to the new fixture from anywhere since it doesn't need to be from a switched box. or just wire it to be on all the time and use wifi/zigbee smart bulbs.
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May 8, 2020 23:02
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I want to see if what I want to do is ridiculous or if it makes any sort of sense. House we are buying is old enough to have a fuse box (but thankfully not in that time period where there is aluminum wiring) instead of a circuit breaker. It is also old enough that nothing is currently grounded. Sellers are going to replace the fuse box with a circuit breaker, install grounds, and bond the pipes and exterior stuff. Short term is map my circuits and GFCI outlets as needed. My super long term goal is to tackle a rewire a room at a time, as it makes sense. My question is this: It seems like for most residential living space (bedrooms, livingrooms), 14/2 w/ 15 amp breaker is the way to go for most standard installs. Am I good to essentially have all my receptacles at the start of the branch and then lighting/fan/switch at the end? There are some folks that seem to say that lighting and receptacles should be on different breakers, but that seems excessive and a throwback to when you had 25+ watts per light being pulled instead of higher efficiency LED lighting. Would it make more sense to go overkill and do 12/2 in those spaces and use a 20 amp breaker. The ultimate goal is essentially a breaker per room, except where you can't, like kitchens and bathrooms.
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May 9, 2020 18:30
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KKKLIP ART posted:I want to see if what I want to do is ridiculous or if it makes any sort of sense. House we are buying is old enough to have a fuse box (but thankfully not in that time period where there is aluminum wiring) instead of a circuit breaker. It is also old enough that nothing is currently grounded. Sellers are going to replace the fuse box with a circuit breaker, install grounds, and bond the pipes and exterior stuff. Short term is map my circuits and GFCI outlets as needed. My super long term goal is to tackle a rewire a room at a time, as it makes sense. It's residential, so it's ultimitely up to you how you want to do it. When I rewired my house, I did it breaker-per-room. The home run (the wire going back to the panel) came in to the room at the light switch; it then dropped down and ran around to all the outlets. It also ran up to the light(s). I used 12/2 for everything, on 20A breakers, because I wasn't trying to be cheap and save pennies per room. Furthermore, each room had one outlet that was on the circuit for the room next to it. That way, I could kill power for a room and still have one powered outlet for lights and stuff. I got one of those Brother (or Dymo, can't remember) stick-on labellers and labeled every outlet as to its breaker. Yeah, it gave my house a bit of a hospital feel, but it was great in the rare times I had to find a tripped breaker because I'd plugged too many things into a circuit. I also made a whole-house circuit map at the same time. That map was worth its weight in gold. In the kitchen, the code is minimum two circuits. Lots of contractors do wall1 as one circuit, wall2 as another. I wired every other outlet to circuit 1, the rest as circuit 2. They all had their own individual GFCI outlets. It would have been cheaper to have a GFCI breaker, but again, I'm not shaving pennies. The whole cost was ~$200 over what the "cheap" way would have been. In a $3000 project, 10% or so to make the thing SUPER AWESOME was well worth it. Dedicated 20A circuit (with a real 20A outlet) for the fridge. Dedicated 15A outlet for the microwave. Dedicated 15A outlet under the sink for the dishwasher/garbage disposal. I also ran power for an oven, even though I had gas. Cheap insurance while the walls are off. That was the single biggest "unnecessary" cost of the project. edit: The electrical inspector for the job said "Don't see many wired this way; it's too expensive and takes too long." I only had one rough-in inspection. The later inspections were just signed off without him ever showing up in the house. Make a good first impression.... babyeatingpsychopath fucked around with this message at 19:07 on May 9, 2020 |
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May 9, 2020 18:53
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That’s all awesome. My gut told me 12/2 for a really similar reason. I called our county office for permit/inspection questions and he simply told me that unless I was replacing over 50% of the wiring at once, don’t bother having them come out which seemed crazy to me. E: also, if I run on 12/2 on a 20 amp, but don’t plan on plugging anything wild, can I still use standard 15 amp outlets that don’t have that strange t-shaped plug on one of the sides? Are those really even used for anything residential wise? KKKLIP ART fucked around with this message at 19:14 on May 9, 2020 |
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May 9, 2020 19:10
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babyeatingpsychopath posted:Dedicated 15A outlet under the sink for the dishwasher/garbage disposal. Not a 15+15 on /3 wire? How are you going to run your 2 HP garbage disposal to break down that pig carcass while your dishwasher superheats your water? 
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May 9, 2020 19:25
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KKKLIP ART posted:I want to see if what I want to do is ridiculous or if it makes any sort of sense. House we are buying is old enough to have a fuse box (but thankfully not in that time period where there is aluminum wiring) instead of a circuit breaker. It is also old enough that nothing is currently grounded. Breakers started coming around in the 1950s, with Pushmatic I think? Aluminum wiring came around for about half of the 1970s. Grounds started appearing in the late 1950s. Even then, they were only required for kitchens and bathrooms. It was even allowed for the start of those branches to be grounded, then continue from those rooms to the rest of the house ungrounded. If your house is old enough to have ungrounded NM, then it's pre-1960. If it's old enough to have knob and tube, it's pre-1950.
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May 9, 2020 22:17
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KKKLIP ART posted:That’s all awesome. My gut told me 12/2 for a really similar reason. I called our county office for permit/inspection questions and he simply told me that unless I was replacing over 50% of the wiring at once, don’t bother having them come out which seemed crazy to me. Yeah, in fact I believe if you use a 20 amp outlet it's supposed to be the only thing on that circuit. Multiple 15 amp outlets on a 12/2 wire with a 20 amp breaker is the normal way of doing it.
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May 9, 2020 22:19
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KKKLIP ART posted:That’s all awesome. My gut told me 12/2 for a really similar reason. I called our county office for permit/inspection questions and he simply told me that unless I was replacing over 50% of the wiring at once, don’t bother having them come out which seemed crazy to me. Yeah, code allows 15A outlet devices on a 20A breaker. For commercial stuff, there's a VA limit per circuit, no such limit exists for residential (there's a recommended limit, but recommendations aren't hard limits). So if you wanted to, you could have a house of arbitrary size with the following circuits: 2x kitchen 15A, 1x laundry room 15A, 1x bathrooms 20A (GFCI), 1x the entire rest of the house 15A (AFCI).
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May 9, 2020 23:26
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kid sinister posted:If your house is old enough to have ungrounded NM, then it's pre-1960. If it's old enough to have knob and tube, it's pre-1950. It’s 1961, and everything I pulled out was ungrounded NM with fabric sheathing. It was wild looking at it but at least it wasn’t aluminum. Nevets posted:Yeah, in fact I believe if you use a 20 amp outlet it's supposed to be the only thing on that circuit. Multiple 15 amp outlets on a 12/2 wire with a 20 amp breaker is the normal way of doing it. That’s what I figured and what some research told me. The Black and Decker wiring electrical book is a really great read and helped a lot with some basic dos and don’ts.
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May 9, 2020 23:28
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15A duplex receptacles, including GFCIs, are rated for 20A of pass-through current, so as long as it's 12g wire in between, it's all good.
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May 10, 2020 00:16
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So these outside outlets on the house have been bugging me and I have never tried to use them as they were super sketchy. I replaced the worst one today.    Turns out the wire feeding this one was just tucked behind the siding going up to a box that was also connected to a outdoor light. I removed the box and light and installed a outdoor box, WR rated outlets, and a weather cover as I would like to use this outlet for some outdoor lights.  So, breaker on, switch on, 120V, good good. So breaker on, switch off, 85V, WTF?
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May 10, 2020 00:42
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evilnissan posted:So these outside outlets on the house have been bugging me and I have never tried to use them as they were super sketchy. Start turning off the other circuits one by one until it reads 0v?
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May 10, 2020 04:19
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That also needs to be a GFCI
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May 10, 2020 04:56
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I know this is a dumb question, but is there a good way to label wires? Can I just use a label maker or some electrical tape (but I don't want to give the impression I am coding the wire for a different use).
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May 10, 2020 14:22
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KKKLIP ART posted:I know this is a dumb question, but is there a good way to label wires? Can I just use a label maker or some electrical tape (but I don't want to give the impression I am coding the wire for a different use). If you're using Romex, and it sounds like you are, you leave a little of the (loose) outer sheathing and write on that with sharpie. Also, as to your previous question regarding wire size/breakers per room/etc. You're fine for your bedrooms and dining room and such. When you get to kitchen and bath its a different ball game.
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May 10, 2020 15:09
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KKKLIP ART posted:I know this is a dumb question, but is there a good way to label wires? Can I just use a label maker or some electrical tape (but I don't want to give the impression I am coding the wire for a different use). https://www.amazon.com/dp/B072SVZKQ5/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_yBbUEb77YF3VD Any DIY variation is also fine, but MAKE SURE THE MATERIAL IS COMPLETELY NON-CONDUCTIVE. Finding out that your label maker uses metallicized tape by accidentally burning your house down would really suck. You could also use colored electrical tape, but the only person who is going to understand it in the future is you. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07JX5QDKH/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_BGbUEbA633GS0 Permanent wire marking is generally done with rollmarking, but the tools are pretty pricy, and I’ve only ever seen wiring done like that in aircraft. I’ve also seen that kind of marking NOT done in aircraft, and gently caress those people with a rake. 
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May 10, 2020 16:07
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How might I go about grounding equipment on an inverter? The device in question has a ground hole in the socket, but no provisions for attaching a ground wire, so the hole does ??? Would it be a horrible idea to stuff a wire into that third hole with the plug, and running it to earth? There's a rebar thing for this present on site already. Context is needing to power up equipment that won't run without a ground, on my friend's shitbox solar setup. It can otherwise deal with whatever weird square wave this cheap inverter barfs out, according to the manual.
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May 10, 2020 21:59
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MrYenko posted:
 Those type are my favorite when you've got a cabinet o wires. I learned my lesson when oil mist got into a cabinet (machine tool) and all of the crappy wire markers I used sloughed off. Roll marked wires are always the best though.
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May 10, 2020 22:10
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Javid posted:How might I go about grounding equipment on an inverter? The device in question has a ground hole in the socket, but no provisions for attaching a ground wire, so the hole does ??? Does he have some sort of standard electrical panel with breakers on site? The ground rod (rebar thing) and neutral should be bonded in his panel. If you run some rigged earth ground to your inverter, it's gonna do exactly jack and poo poo to clear the fault if your device shorts to its casing somehow. Don't do this. Regarding your device with no ground prong in it's plug, that's a completely separate issue. Did you snap off the ground prong at some point? You'll need to replace the plug. Edit - I think to thoroughly answer your question about this possibly non-standard setup, we need to know what your buddy's solar rig is doing, and what you're trying to accomplish with your inverter. Like, tell us what voltage you're converting to and from. angryrobots fucked around with this message at 22:23 on May 10, 2020 |
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May 10, 2020 22:20
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There's no plug missing prongs. Nor is there a panel. (There is a breaker panel in a building fed by this abortion, but it's well downstream of the grounding rod) Their thing is a 1kw solar array feeding two charge controllers feeding a bank of 3 (lol) deep cycle typical car-sized batteries. There is a big 2k watt inverter wired onto that battery bank, and that grounding rod is wired to the ground port on that thing. I don't remember the actual numbers, but a person who knows AC better than I took a multimeter to a bunch of the outlets this thing feeds and was like "what the gently caress, that isn't how that works"; my equipment throws a completely different "wtf is this poo poo" error when plugged directly into that device. I completely don't want to figure out what is wrong with their broken 120v bullshit, so I'm attaching my portable 400 watt inverter to the same otherwise functional 12v system. It's just the two clamps, no provisions for grounding; the physical outlets on it have a ground hole but I have no idea how it could possibly do anything while attached to nothing but a battery. My power bank also won't take that thing's output and I'm chasing down the ground as a default option. How they function with this hosed up power I don't know, just attaching a non poo poo inverter to their existing battery and grounding rod seems to be the shortest distance between me and charging my own batteries to not depend on their bullshit. there's more than enough excess production from the 1kw panel array to charge my stuff without reducing the available power to everyone else from the dinky little battery setup. I can attempt to get photos of all of this, it's all pretty terrible and I'm just trying to find the least terrible way to get my actual good equipment to drink the available electricity and power other things in turn
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May 11, 2020 01:36
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I don't blame you for not wanting to fix their mess. So in the case of your inverter, the ground on the plug is bonded to the neutral in the inverter. So that's where it's terminated - it doesn't need any external ground. Are you saying that your equipment still isn't working with your inverter either, or are you just asking based on prior issues with the other crappy setup?
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May 11, 2020 04:15
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My equipment*, when plugged into that inverter, does not work and gives me the "site wiring fault" light. A lack of ground is one of the several issues that can trip that light, hence chasing it down first. It's a little cheap 400w clamp-on inverter so it could just be old and lovely too. It will charge a phone but I haven't poked it with a multimeter or anything. Buying a new decent inverter is an option, just not a first choice.  *Big server UPS. Not ideal but was free and can eat weird voltage so I threw it in the van for this trip. Javid fucked around with this message at 18:07 on May 11, 2020 |
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May 11, 2020 17:53
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Javid posted:My equipment*, when plugged into that inverter, does not work and gives me the "site wiring fault" light. A lack of ground is one of the several issues that can trip that light, hence chasing it down first. UPS's really HATE square wave inverters, because they themselves are square-wave inverters. You need a sine-wave (not "simulated sine-wave") input for a UPS to play ball.
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May 11, 2020 19:13
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