On Friday, June 21, 2013 7:25:03 AM UTC-7, wrote:
On Friday, June 21, 2013 7:13:02 AM UTC-4, Doug Miller wrote: Fred McKenzie wrote in news:fmmck-CB580A.22112020062013@ 5ad64b5e.bb.sky.com: In article , Robert Macy wrote: As I said, if light switches can be made to be all down when off; it's easy to tell which light switch activated the light. But, when you have a rack of switches in arbitray positions and all your lights are out but one... Robert- I missed the earlier comments, but I see a point of confusion. You're missing what Robert's *really* confused about... see below. Do you want any one switch to be able to turn off the light if a different switch turned it on? That requires a string of switches, with the end switches in a SPDT configuration. Any intermediate switches would be in a DPDT configuration. (There may be some 4 terminal switches intended for this function.) As mentioned, you could swap two wires at any one of the switches to give you "All Down Equals OFF". But that would be of little value if you want to know which one switch was responsible for leaving the light on. Knowing which switch is responsible for leaving the light on is of no value to begin with. If the light can be turned on OR OFF from any of multiple switches, WHO CARES which switch turned it on? It. Does. Not.. Matter. For that, you would simply connect all SPST switches in parallel. All switches in the up position would need to be turned off for the light to go off. Then you would not have "N-Way" switches where one of N switches could turn off a light another switch turned on. ... thus completely defeating the purpose of having multiple switches. Heh, I'm with you on this one Doug. I don't see the point to the whole exercise. But there are others here like Dennis, that think we shouldn't be asking the question about "why" he wants it, what purpose it serves, just tell him how to do it. He started off with: "Plus, (original installer) paid no attention to having all of the individual multiple switches end up in any proper position when the hallway light is off, so want to change. Swapping these two switches in their physical location in the box is no problem the wiring appears to be long enough, although the cabling comes down through the inlet holes in the wrong places. but still reaches. Big problem is the best way to change the switching action of the multiple control switch. " Which implies that there is an expectation of what the "proper position is for 3-way, 4-way, 5-way switches should be to each other? No electrician even considers this, because the light can be on with some switches up, some down and no one that I know cares. You just look at the light. If Robert rewires it so that the light is off with all 4 down, then if you're standing at one switch and the light is off, all you know is that the one corresponding switch is also down. You still don't know what position the other two switches are in. So, AFAIK, you would have to go check one of those as well. Or you could just look at the light. In every case I've seen, it's easier to look at the light for a hallway, then check at least two switches.... If this really is an OCD thing, like Dennis says, that's fine, and he can get all 4 down with the light off. It's just that if it really solves something that we're missing, it would be nice to know what that is. Like you, if someone wants to set about fiddling with something that is work and seems to serve no purpose, I try to understand the real objective, so that we're not just providing steps in some process that doesn't solve anything.

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I don't know why it's so difficult to understand WHY I'd like the switches to be at least once in their lives setting ALL in the proper position. You evidently don't have a house with a lot of lighting controls and multiple switch plates. I have agreed in previous posts that *if* this were a single light switch plate at four different locations to control an overhead light; no biggie. I don't care WHAT position they're in, because THAT light switch obviously controls THAT light, done. But when you have racks and racks of multi-controller switches running ?? around your bedroom; it would be nice to have the switches at least be 'settable' to a mnemonic configuration, where OFF is down, then when turn one on it's obvious which light switch to turn off to get back to ALL lights off. Else, you're stuck out there in the 30 by 50 ft room trying to remember exactly which one in the rack of 5 is the one to shut off! Results, you wake up and have to 'think' about the light switches. Don't want that, don't want to have to completely wake up, rather scan the switches and think, oh that's the one and OFF it goes - done and can go back to sleep.

I'm not even going to get into the problem of explaining the switches to a guest in the house! Or, I could say, "Yeah, feel free to play with the switches until you get the right one." A guest unfamiliar with the switch setup only has to look at the rack and notice which one is up to turn off a light.