On Friday, June 21, 2013 3:50:23 PM UTC-4, TimR wrote:
Okay.



If I'm understanding correctly, he wants to be able to tell if a circuit is on or off by looking at the switch.



The standard convention for switches is up for ON, down for OFF, but this doesn't work for multiple control switches.

Welcome to the club.... There are two views here. Most of us are
in your camp. Even those in the other camp, Dennis mostly, recognize
what you say. You can set up a N way switch system fo
the light is off with all the switches down. That is one state. You
can do that. But it's also obviously off with other combination, so,
like you, I think we all don't see it solving anything. I don'
think Dennis thinks it solves anything other than providing that
one all down position to solve some kind of OCD thing.







So, why not solve the problem with a pilot light? A small indicator light by each switch would glow when that circuit has power. Or when it doesn't, either way.



I've seen this done for refrigeration equipment, maybe for boilers, I think a couple of other applications. If you have a freezer on a switch you like to know nobody turned it off.



The advantage of this is he could see the switch panel in the dark and know without turning anything on.