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micky micky is offline
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Default 3-way switches -- old house wiring

On Thu, 22 Oct 2015 07:51:07 -0400, Stormin Mormon
wrote:

On 10/22/2015 6:38 AM, Micky wrote:
On Thu, 22 Oct 2015 02:19:42 -0700 (PDT),
wrote:

My situation is a little trickier. When taking off all 6 wires, there's a hot wire at each switch. As I understand it, when the power source is between the switches, only one can be connected to the common. The way it's wired now, one switch must remain in the "on" then controlled from the second switch.


Wired now? I thought you had disconnected the wires.

Without colored wires, the only ones I can identify are the hot wires.


First, make a drawing. Don't expect to remember what you've seen.

Turn off the power and measure the voltage at the hot wires to make
sure you turned off the right circuit.

Then measure the resistance to ground or neutral of the other wires.
The ones that go through the light bulb to neutral should have
non-infinite resistance. Do this with real lightbulbs in the
circuit. I'm not sure what the resistance of other bulbs is.


Look online for various ways to wire a 3-way switch.



With both switches removed, isn't the bulb connected
to nothing on both ends?


Maybe with one or two of the ways it can be wired. I can't remember.
But certainly with some ways it's still connected to neutral.