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I'm not really new to electrical wiring, but I am kinda confused on the function of 3-way switches. Here's my question?
1) power is connected to the common of the 1st 3 way switch, I tie the nutural and ground to the light
2) the travelers are connected to the second 3-way switch and the common from the 2nd 3-way switch goes to the hot side of the light.
I followed the directions and I have to say its not really that hard, but here's my question?
if I flip switch 1 to the on position the light will come on, if I walk to switch 2 and flip it the light turns off, and if I go back to switch 1 and flip it, nothing happens the light is off, if I stay at switch 1 and flip it on/off the light stays off until I go back to switch 2 and flip it back then the light will come on again.
this also works in reverse, example if I turn on switch 2 1st then it will turn on the light and switch 1 becomes the slave switch
am I doing something wrong? or is this how 3-way switches work
I did some testing, here's what I did
I duplicated this on my workbench and it did the same thing. so I tried to rewire it different ways and I found out that if I switch the nutural then I can turn on/off the light regardless of the postion of the other switch so both switches work independently, but when the light is off there is still 70v of electrical current present.not enough energize the light, is there anything wrong with this approach
or should I leave this testing for the workbench
The objective of the 3-way switches is simply to provide a way for 2 locations to turn a light on or off. There are actually 2 ways to wire the switches to achieve that effect. However, one of them is safe and one is not. You may have discovered the unsafe way yourself. The link raisedbedbob gave shows the correct way to wire two 3-way switches (single pole double throw) to achieve the effect and remain safe.
What is meant by safe is:
1. When the switches are in either of the combination of positions that leave the light off, there should be no voltage present relative to ground on either of the light socket terminals.
2. There should be no voltage relative to ground on the screw shell part of the light socket at any time, whether the light is on or off.
There is another method of wiring sometimes called "French Three Way" or "California Three Way" which involves connecting the common of each switch to the light (one switch to one terminal and one switch to the other terminal). Then the switched poles of each switch are connected to the 2 power source wires (usually one hot and one neutral). This works because the light will be on when one switch is switched to the hot and the other is switched to the neutral. When both switches are switched to the neutral the light is off. Also when both switches are switched to the hot, the light is off. But this kind of wiring is unsafe because it violates both rules above. It should never be used.
I thought I was wiring everything correctly, and when raisedbedbob gave me that URL it confirmed that I did wire everything correctly. I did Google "3-way switches" before I posed here and I did read about the "California 3-Way Switch" and thats probably what I will end up doing but I'll do some more research on this, but it's sort of like doing a California Stop while driving you still get ticketed if caught. I will do this with caution
