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How To Wire a 3-Way Light Switch
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- Опубліковано 5 сер 2024
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3-way light switches can be a bit confusing for most DIYers. I will walk you through the most common example of a 3-way light circuit to ensure you wire it correctly the first time. Additionally, I will cover why we call a circuit with 2 switches "3-way" and also what role the 2 traveler wires play in the overall functionality.
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Chapters
0:00 Intro
0:51 Why Is It Called 3-Way?
1:37 Common 3-Way Light Circuit Schematic Review
6:44 Demonstration of How The 2 Lights Switches Work
11:28 Recap
DISCLAIMER: This video and description contain affiliate links, which means that if you click on one of the product links, I’ll receive a small commission.
Great explanation. When I was fifteen a gentleman explained that to me at a hardware store. Then he wrote it down like you did. He was a electrician, and I was just replacing one switch but he explained how it would work and helped select a switch. I’m sixty three now but still remember that.
That’s an awesome story. I love small hardware stores 👍👍
💪wonderful in details💪
I know this is probably a repetitive sentiment but the way you illustrate everything and clearly articulate the idea and functionality on how these switches are wired are on par with how any master electrician would explain this! You are definitely a smart and competent person and I truly appreciate the time you take in making your videos! Keep it up as I absolutely enjoy your content! Cheers!
Mr. Scott you have a great way of explaining things the layman can understand. This is excellent and I always wondered how these switches work. You are smart.
Happy to help and thanks for the feedback 👍
When I worked at Menards, I always told people to mark the common with a piece of electrical tape before removing the old switch. The two travellers can be flipped without issue.
Absolutely amazing 👏 I had to wire one of these circuits in our old home. It NEVER made sense to me until right now! You're a gem!!
Great, we are here to help 👍. Thanks for the support.
This is the best explanation of a wired 3 way I have seen, especially since I am a visual learner. Thank you!
You've got the easiest videos I've ever seen to follow, thank you!
Thanks Roger 👍
This is an excellent presentation with great visuals and clearly explained details. Thank you for helping, and thank you for taking the time to make this video.
Great video, good explanation I love your channel because you take time to explain step by step how work the circuits in all your videos
Great explanation on my tv with my old eyes many of those colors were hard to tell apart on your chart.
Best ever "storyteller".... Thank you.
Great Job, especially the drawing 👏. I have to have hands on teaching. You did it.
Great video and explanation of the concepts!!
By far and away THE BEST explanation..!
Great video, thanks for the explanation
Outstanding explanation!
Very clear explanation. The only draw back is the colour of the line of your drawing is hard to distinguish the colour on the screen. Can not spot it easily, red, green, black etc.
Thanks for the feedback, need to break out the dry erase board next time 👍
Excellent visual explanation.
Thx!
awesome man thank you for sharing now I know how it works!...
Lovely explanation. Thank you!
Thx!
🤗 THANKS SCOTT …GOOD,SIMPLE EXPLANATION 😍😍😍
Thank you!
excelllent demo n explanation
Thanks Joe!
You’re so awesome! This is on my list. I upgraded my thermostat a couple months ago and the heat turned my AC on 😂 I figured it out with help tho. Lol
Thx Valerie, appreciate the support.
Thank you!
Electrician here. You did a great job explaining travelers with the most common wiring technique. There are occasions when the circuit is wired differently ( usually in older homes) But your base explanation was on point. Great job ( are you an electrician btw?)
Thanks for the feedback! I'm just a DIYer slowly building experience on my rentals, flips, and my own projects around the house.
That was great…always wondered but didn’t want to ask on job site how it works.
👍, thanks for the feedback.
This is fantastic.
Thanks Anthony 👍
This guy is the best.
I replaced a 3-way with a dimmer with a 3-way without dimmer today, and got the travelers reversed, since I couldn't figure out which was which (thanks to the strange color coding on the wires). By the time I got everything back together, 'off'/'off' (that is, the switch position where a 2-way switch is off) turned the lights on. The funny thing is that my wife doesn't believe me that it's different than it used to be, so I don't need to fix it!
Very good. White paper might have made the colors easier to see, but the explanation is good.
Hopefully I can see you do a 4 way light setup. That would be cool
A 4 way switch would be a switch with 4 contact used in the middle of the 3 way switches. It allows you to have 3 or more switches controlling the same light. 4 ways in the middle with 2 travelers coming in and 2 going out and 3 ways on the ends
I would like to se a video on wireing a 4 way switch
I love your videos in general but I don’t find talking about a subject like this in front of a paper like this to be super useful. Seeing is believing. Sparky Channel has some fantastic videos on 3 and 4 way switches where he sets up practical demos and walks through wiring them.
Thanks for the feedback Sam. I always test out different ways to present the topics some are winners and other losers. 😁
Excellent review! Not sure if it matters, but my preference for three-way switches is to have the light off when both switches are in the same position (if both switches look "off" then the light itself is off). Does code care one way or the other?
I prefer the same; when all switches are down, the light is off. When you have one switch down and the other up and the light is off, generally you can just reverse the travelers on the up switch and this should turn the light on. When you lower the switch, it should turn off.
Regarding code, I just finished a series of inspections, which included turning a single pole light switch into two, 3-way switches and the inspector did not care about switch orientation.
@@Around_The_Home
Why would you care about positions? What if you had three switches controlling one light (two @ 3-way switches and one 4-way switch)? I doubt that all three would be in the same position most of the time. Besides, more often than not you can't see one switch from the other.
@@njsongwriter Why do people show orienting switch/receptacle faceplate screws so the slots are all vertical or all horizontal? Who ever looks at that? To answer my own question, it is called finishing touch. Also, my upstairs hallway light is controlled by three switches and when all the switches are down, the light is off. The light is also off in other scenarios, but it is always off when all three switches are down.
I have two 3 way switches operating 3 ceiling LED pot lights. Everything works fine except for some ghost voltage in the circuit - when all the lights are off the LED lights have a small noticeable glow. Do you know how to eliminate this?
Question, can you add a single pole switch to control a different light at switch number 2 without running a new power into the box? Can this be done safely and current code?
I have two light switches in my kitchen so if you leave house out the garage you can turn off kitchen light without walking to the other end going towards living room....i never understood why on mine, one switch is up in the on position while the other one is off and the light is off. You would think both switches would be off and light would be off and to turn the light on, one of the switches had to be in the on position for the light to be on.....not mine if both is off, light is on... and you can flip which ever switch you want up and it'll turn the light off....well this was working fine just confusing me because I'm use to light switches being in the down position for light being off, I became use to it....but not to long ago, it started acting weird...if I had the switch by the garage in the up position, the switch by living stopped working (up and down had no affect on light)...then if the switch by garage was switched to off, the living room side switch would work just fine up or down turning the light on and off.....I'm so confused and I have not touched any of the electrical and it randomly started this issue. So now I just leave the garage switch in off setting and only use the switch in living room to turn lights on or off in the kitchen.........anyone know what's going on and might help me out?
My wife and I are adding Lutron motion switches in our stairwell to our basement. The upstairs switch has a wire that continues to our foyer ceiling lights. The stairwell originally had mechanical three way switches in it. We have successfully gotten the lower motion switch to work correctly, but can’t get the upstairs switch to work with the motion switch. Any ideas on what I am doing wrong?
Question: can I use a 3-way switch as a single pole? If so, do I connect the line wire to the gold screw and load wire to the black screw or the reverse?
Yes, but you burn money for nothing.
My understanding of 3 way switch naming convention is that there are 3 possibilities
On/on
Off/off
On/off
I maybe wrong
What does it mean if I have a light switch at the top and bottom of the stairs and they both can be used to turn the light off and on but they can't be used to control the light together? Example: individually they work to control the light but if one is turned on the other one can't turn it off. Does that mean I have a wire in the wrong place? Or is there an issue with the traveler wire? Thanks for your help.
Can you put the wire the switch and the light together instead of the drawing actually wiring it together?
I've tried and tried to wire it right, but I can't figure it out. This is a great video for 3 ways, but I have 3 switches for one light. So there are two 3 ways, and one 4 way, and I can't get them to work together for nothing. Replaced all switches the same way they were wired, but it didn't work before either. So I gave up, I now have to walk to the bottom of the steps to turn my light on and off. Good excercise lol
I owned a house that had a four way switch system. Three switches and a single light fixture above a basement stairway. Thankfully I never had to change those switches out. One switch at the bottom of the stairs, one switch at the middle landing which led to a side room, and the final switch at the top of the stairs on the main floor. The light hung on a long cable lighting all of the stair sections.
One of the switches will be an intermediate switch, the traveller wires/strappers connect through the switch, it really is no more difficult than a two way
@@michaeldunham3385 Easy for you to say. I'm still trying to figure out the diagram. 🤣
I had one like that in an old house that we had to rewire before moving in. One switch at the entry door, one at the top of the stairs and a third switch on the end of a short hall that was at the kitchen. All three switches controlled two lights, one over the stairway and another a light in the first level hallway. The two at the further ends were 3-way switches wired as you normally would. The one in the middle took a bit of trial and error for me at the time cause I didn't know which terminal was which on the 4-way switch. This was back in 1980.
Excellent.
Now, what if the light is between the two switches, not at the end of the circuit?
Does not matter. There is only one load cable going from one of the switches to the light. That cable can pretty much go wherever you need it to. So how to wire a 3-way is the same regardless if the light is at either end or in-between.
It's pretty much the same, your simply connecting the two switches inside the box where the fixture is located. The incoming hot lead goes to the common on one switch and the common on the other switch goes to the fixture.
I have the picture perfectly clear in my head when going from [ source --> switch --> switch --> fixture ]. Anything else I can never keep it all straight :-(
I love your videos but at the end of this explanation I feel a little like Will Smith at the end of the "Because we're the best of the best of the best. Sir" speech in Men in Black. It seems to me like the real reason that has gone unsaid is that: whereas a single two-way switch opens and closes the circuit, the three way switch actually switches between the black hot and red traveler to carrier connection. So unless both switches point to the same conductor, the circuit is broken - and that's WHY you can open or close it at either location. As in, the diagram of the switch would help explain the WHY vs. the WHAT.
Believe it is called two (2) way in the UK. more confusion. They do not count the load.
🤦♂️ oh man, thanks for the feedback 👍
correct
I spoke to an old electrician and he explained why it's called a three-way, and the answer is because there are three different ways that you can make this circuit work.
At this point one of them is definitely illegal so it's Not very well known.
What I'd like to know is it so hard to install light switches right side up. Forget DIY, so called professional contractor's down here in Canada can not get this right. I can't remember the last time I saw a entire house or apartment with all the light switch's installed the same way. Very common on a three switch plate is one switch up for on, the next down for on and then an other one up for on, very annoying as it's easy to turn one on as your turning an other off.
That’s not how it works. No matter which way you turn a 3-way switch it will be what you call “upside down” at some point. It’s science but do the test yourself by flipping one of your 3-ways or both. Then walk back and forth across the room flipping each switch once. You will get a situation where the light is on but the switch appears “off”.
@@mikeydiamonds1 I understand what your saying but I am talking about one switch for one light. They never change, they we're installed upside down. You can just pull them out flip them over and screw them in correctly. The only science involved is how people get so distracted. I installed a light switch then I was 12 and it was right side up the first try. Mistakes happen but this happens way to often.
I just replaced six 3-way switches in my family room. Five of the six switches have a red and white traveler with a black common. The sixth switch controls the outdoor light from the stair case. The box at the top of the stairs, the line in this case, has a red and black traveler with a white common while the box at the bottom of the stairs has a red and black traveler with a black common. Talk about being consistent 😡
In the UK the travellers are AKA gyppos or pikies. The wires you are referring to are called Strappers. I hope this helps our UK residents. Lol
Also in the UK the switch is called a two way switch.
You should've used white paper. I can't see the colors on that brown paper.
you cannot have dimmable 3 way switches on either sides, otherwise the lights will flicker.
🤓🖖👌👍✌😎
If you're going to draw a picture, keep your hand from between the camera and the drawing.
Where's your cybertoy ?
Cybertruck?
@@EverydayHomeRepairs 👍😉
I’m more confused than before the video….
I have no problem with 3-way switches but wiring a 4-way switch... That is a problem.
A four way switch has four contacts, two incoming and two outgoing and it witches between straight and crossed.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiway_switching#/media/File:4-way_switches_position_1.svg
You use a four way switch only in the middle switch (or middle switches) though in principle you could use it a a three way switch by just ignoring one of the contacts.
There is a better way. Hot and lite wire go to same box. Three wire between the switches. The "dummy" end needs no connections. And 4-way switches can be added to dummy end indefinitely.
with all due respect, why not use a simple schematic that actually shows the contacts inside the switch. Show both but an electrical schematic more clearly shows the travelers. I am an electrical engineer that now has my electricians license, when I see these crazy diagrams of loopy wiring diagrams I shake my head. With a schematic even the four way switch is easier to understand.
I really like your vids, they are great. But hear me out....
I appreciate the feedback. I am also an engineer and have worked with many electrical and hydraulic schematics over the year, mostly for off-road equipment. I prefer a schematic which follows standards and uses proper symbols but I have found over the years the DIY crowd seems to shy away from that type of teaching. 🤷♂️. Maybe I will give it another try 👍.
@@EverydayHomeRepairs I really like your channel. I see those drawings and they make my head hurt. I think most would benefit by seeing an electrical schematic AND the type of drawing you show. I found one site that gave a great explanation of 3 way and 4 way. If I can find it again I will post. Again, great channel.