Strange behavior with switch. i have a single black wire, neutral and ground, so simple wiring. my light fixture has 5 LED bulbs. I’m able to set up the Switch in the app, do the update, and everything else. it is just when the switch is attached (on or off). one bulb blinks constantly. all other bulbs are off. to me this indicates low voltage getting to the bulbs. Not sure what to do with this.
Explain in a bit more detail what is wired to what. You imply that there are a total of three wires and that won’t work.
This sounds like a standard circuit: hot, ground and neutral, running to a multi-bulb fixture.
For a smart switch, ya gotta have at least four wires (assuming there is a ground) - hot power coming in to the switch, switched hot going out to the load, neutral, and ground. Depending on how things are done, maybe neutral in and out, and maybe ground in and out too.
Ah, yes…forgot about the load line. Too many outlets vs. switches.
hmm. The wiring in the box is ground (bare wire); line (black, i’m assuming is line, not load), and neutral (white). No other colors or wires. As far as I understand, the load is just power to a secondary device, but this seems to be a switch at the the end of the line.
From a technical standpoint, standard dumb switches only REQUIRE hot source in and switched hot to the load. Ground is nice, but if you’re like my house where there is no ground on the original 1962 wiring, there is no ground. A common wiring situation for a light switch (assuming wiring is in the attic - like my house) is there will be a junction box in the attic above the wall switch with a two wire piece of Romex coming down the wall to the switch. That will have just black and white wires. Normally the black is hot and white is switched hot. That is legal however the white wire MUST be marked with a color to show that it is not neutral. Once grounded cable became the norm, the third wire (either bare or green) was ground. Sounds like that is what you have. In the junction box in the attic, will be one two wire plus ground Romex for hot power, neutral and ground coming in; a second piece of Romex going to the light fixture that has switched hot on black, neutral on white and ground on green or bare wire. The hot power coming in will connect to the black wire going down the wall to the switch, and the switched hot to the light fixture will connect to the white (marked with a color) wire going down the wall to the switch. There may also be another piece of Romex that has hot, neutral, and ground going to some other location.
In this configuration, there is no neutral to the switch - which is fine for a dumb switch. For most smart switches there MUST be neutral to the switch. BTW, more recent National Electrical Codes requires neutral be wired to switch boxes, because of this.
The proper solution is to run neutral to the switch. If this is in Romex, that is a pain and my require opening the wall. If you are lucky enough that your wiring is in conduit, it is easy to add a neutral.
The illegal solution is to connect the bare wire to neutral instead of ground both in the junction box in the attic and the switch. THIS IS NOT LEGAL even if you mark the bare wire as white, but it will work. Officially I DO NOT RECOMMEND DOING THIS.
If you do not know what you’re doing (I suspect this is the case - else you would not be asking), hire an electrician to fix this properly.
ha. i suspect this is the case as well. i am also a horrible plumber.
I don’t overly mind doing outside plumbing (where is enough room to work), but don’t really like inside plumbing. I’m a large guy and don’t fit well in most of the places needed to be accessed for inside plumbing.
As for electrical, I am not a professional electrician, but do some of it at work, and quite a bit at home. My latest project was to replace my main meter / breaker panel with a new / larger panel and had the utility upgrade my service from 100 to 200 amp. Added a new 100 amp sub panel into my detached garage and completely re-wired the garage and storage shed behind it. The city building inspector was happy with my work…
For electrical code questions, I have friends and co-workers I can ask so that I do it right…
That is a big job. My dad is an electrical engineer. I inherited my electrical understanding from my mother. So, you are suggesting I have a Line and Load (white), but not a neutral.
Most likely yes.
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