Weird situation. I just expanded a two-gang switch box to a triple
gang. The new switch is a Lutron Diva DVLV-600P. Downstream from it
are a couple of outlets that I am going to plug in some rope lighting
as well as two low-voltage cannister lights.

After I wired the new switch, I turned it on and tested the outlet.
The outlet tested fine. However, the cannister lights did not light
up. Further, when I turned the switch off, the tester was still in the
outlet. Rather than just turning off, it showed a low-dim open neutral
(right light was barely lit up). Crazy.

Any ideas as to what could be causing this? All of the neutrals in the
switch box are clearly connected and the outlet neutral is also
connected.

Thanks, Randy

Your weird readings on the meter may be through an led in the dimmer. The
DVLV is for magnetic transformers. Is it possible that your canister lights
have electronic transformers?


"Randy" wrote in message
oups.com...
Weird situation. I just expanded a two-gang switch box to a triple
gang. The new switch is a Lutron Diva DVLV-600P. Downstream from it
are a couple of outlets that I am going to plug in some rope lighting
as well as two low-voltage cannister lights.

After I wired the new switch, I turned it on and tested the outlet.
The outlet tested fine. However, the cannister lights did not light
up. Further, when I turned the switch off, the tester was still in the
outlet. Rather than just turning off, it showed a low-dim open neutral
(right light was barely lit up). Crazy.

Any ideas as to what could be causing this? All of the neutrals in the
switch box are clearly connected and the outlet neutral is also
connected.

Thanks, Randy

Thanks for the reply. No. They cannisters are magnetic.

Anybody have any thoughts?

Did the rope light work? Do either the rope light or the canisters work when
plugged into other outlets? Did you try removing the dimmer and connect the
wires together? Is it possible that you inadvertently put this outlet
circuit in series with other wiring in the box?



"Randy" wrote in message
oups.com...
Weird situation. I just expanded a two-gang switch box to a triple
gang. The new switch is a Lutron Diva DVLV-600P. Downstream from it
are a couple of outlets that I am going to plug in some rope lighting
as well as two low-voltage cannister lights.

After I wired the new switch, I turned it on and tested the outlet.
The outlet tested fine. However, the cannister lights did not light
up. Further, when I turned the switch off, the tester was still in the
outlet. Rather than just turning off, it showed a low-dim open neutral
(right light was barely lit up). Crazy.

Any ideas as to what could be causing this? All of the neutrals in the
switch box are clearly connected and the outlet neutral is also
connected.

Thanks, Randy

Yes, the rope light works, but I am concerned about the dim open
neutral light on the tester. As for the cannisters, I tried
substituting a different switch, but still no light. I didn't try
connecting the wires directly as these are magnetic low-voltage
cannisters and I don't know the effect of bypassing the low voltage
switch. Directly connecting wires results in line-voltage - wouldn't
this potentially damage the cannisters?

As for other wiring in the box, no. There is one live line into the
box and three lines out. Each of the lines out are running through low
voltage switches (two mag, one electronic). The other two switches
work fine.

Interesting side note: After I plugged in the rope light into the first
outlet to test in order to answer your question, the dim open-neutral
on the tester (still plugged into outlet #2) no longer was visible. I
don't know what this means, if anything, but I thought it was
interesting.

I think that I am going to have to pull out one of the cannisters to
see if any power is getting there.

Any other suggestions are welcome. Thanks very much for your feedback
so far.

Randy

Follow-up information. I pulled the first cannister and tested it
using a simple two-wire tester. When I test it using the ground, it
lights up. When I test it using the neutral, it does not. This would
seem to confirm the presence of an open neutral wire, yes??

These are not low voltage switches, they are low voltage dimmers. If you
just used a standard toggle switch or just touched the two switch wires
together you are giving full voltage (120) to the transformer, which in turn
is going to give 12 or 24 volts(depending on the fixture) to the lamps in
the fixtures. Some Diva dimmers have an LED in them. When the switch is in
the OFF position, you will get strange readings at the outlet, which is this
trickle of electricity passing through to operate the LED


"Randy" wrote in message
oups.com...
Yes, the rope light works, but I am concerned about the dim open
neutral light on the tester. As for the cannisters, I tried
substituting a different switch, but still no light. I didn't try
connecting the wires directly as these are magnetic low-voltage
cannisters and I don't know the effect of bypassing the low voltage
switch. Directly connecting wires results in line-voltage - wouldn't
this potentially damage the cannisters?

As for other wiring in the box, no. There is one live line into the
box and three lines out. Each of the lines out are running through low
voltage switches (two mag, one electronic). The other two switches
work fine.

Interesting side note: After I plugged in the rope light into the first
outlet to test in order to answer your question, the dim open-neutral
on the tester (still plugged into outlet #2) no longer was visible. I
don't know what this means, if anything, but I thought it was
interesting.

I think that I am going to have to pull out one of the cannisters to
see if any power is getting there.

Any other suggestions are welcome. Thanks very much for your feedback
so far.

Randy

If by testing you mean, you opened the splice box on the fixture and touched
the two fixture wires to the power supply wires and found it works only when
you connect it to the hot and ground, yes, you've got and open neutral



"Randy" wrote in message
oups.com...
Follow-up information. I pulled the first cannister and tested it
using a simple two-wire tester. When I test it using the ground, it
lights up. When I test it using the neutral, it does not. This would
seem to confirm the presence of an open neutral wire, yes??

In your original post you say that the outlet tested "fine", what are you
using to determine this?


"RBM" rbm2(remove wrote in message
...
If by testing you mean, you opened the splice box on the fixture and
touched the two fixture wires to the power supply wires and found it works
only when you connect it to the hot and ground, yes, you've got and open
neutral



"Randy" wrote in message
oups.com...
Follow-up information. I pulled the first cannister and tested it
using a simple two-wire tester. When I test it using the ground, it
lights up. When I test it using the neutral, it does not. This would
seem to confirm the presence of an open neutral wire, yes??

I used a simple two-wire tester. When I touched one wire to black and
one to white, nothing. When I touched one to black and one to ground,
it lit up. So clearly there is an open neutral.

This is based on using one of those $2 Home Depot outlet testers where
it has three indicator lights (one red and two yellow). If the two
yellow lights light up, the outlet tests OK. In my case, this was the
result when the switch was turned on. When the dimmer was turned off,
the right (yellow) light was dimly light. Typically, this would
indicate an open ground. However, since this was on a low-voltage
dimmer line, it might indicate something else or even nothing. The
dimmer does not have an LED, per se, but it is back lit when turned
off. This is likely the cause of the weird test result.

Correction. I meant to say an open neutral on the right (yellow) light
being lit on the tester. Not an open ground.

Victory. I had to pull apart the cannisters. When I re-wired the
power feed into the first cannister, both cans worked immediately. I
still have the weird dimly lit open neutral when I test the outlets,
but since everything works just fine, I can only assume that this is
due to the back lighting on the dimmer. There clearly was an open
neutral where the first can was wired, but this seems to be a separate
issue as it is now corrected.

Thanks for your help, RBM. I really appreciate it.

Randy