This is a question regarding a weird problem with a four way switch situation. I am not an electrician, but I am finishing up the building of a sizable addition to my home with several 3-way switch situations that all worked out fine and ONE 4-way switch situation that is somehow not working properly.
This is a set up with 3 switches which uniformly turn on and off four overhead lights. The point, of course, was to be able to switch on and off all four of the overheads at once from any of three separate switches at any time.
On the other multiple switch arrangements which involve two switches for 2 or 3 overheads at once I used the approach of power into first switch … 4 wire line to second switch .. then 3 wire line to first light and on to second lite. Worked geat.
On THIS multiple switch arrangement which involves 3 switches for all 4 overheads at once I used the alternet approach of power straight to the first light .. on to the second .. the third .. then the fourth .. THEN down to switch 1 (3-way) .. switch 2 (4-way) .. and switch 3 (3-way). When I closely examine the switches and the lights now they appear to all be wired properly in accordance with some books that I’ve consulted all along and have never been mis-lead by. BUT … when I turn on the juice to the lights what I’m getting is heavy, low level FLICKERING in cfl bulbs … and, when I switched these out for incandescent bulbs I get bulbs that ligh up to about as bright as maybe 6 or 8 watts. It is as if there is power going through and all of the switches work properly .. but the power is extremely limites. ALL of the other things on this power line are fine and I’ve trouble shooted quite a bit by hooking this line to another breaker and so forth. But still … the lights come on dimly (incandescent) or flickery and weak (cfl).
I’m flumoxed. Any suggestions???
Thanks-
Aaron
Replies
Has nothing to do with the switches -- you've somehow managed to get the lamps wired in series rather than parallel.
any suggestions on just how I might go about correcting this?
All I have before me are four lamp boxes ... now that the drywall is up I don't even know what order they are in... if that is relevant.
There are, in each box, two black wires joined to continue on, two ground wires joined with a pig-tail out to the lamp, and two white wires ... one with a black tape to signal 'hot'. I've joined that white/black to the black lamp wire and the white to the white.
At first I had that reversed. But now I've reversed the reverse and, I THOUGHT, got it right.
How do I approach this if what you say is, in fact, correct???
thanks.
>>>any suggestions on just
>>>any suggestions on just how I might go about correcting this?
I'd suggest carefully following a diagram. Google is your friend. There are plenty of them out there.
Hey!
I got her figured out with the help of my wiz-kid son who got hold of it
and saw the problem. It's going to take some doing but I should have
it straightened out in a couple of hours tomorrow by reversing the flow of
the electricity such that the switches come first and re-assigning a few
connections.
Thanks -
nb
- CASE CLOSED -
If you're going to feed the power through the light boxes you need three wires through the boxes. Only at the first box coming in and at the last box going out to the switches do you have only two wires.