Hi, so I have an unusual situation where I stupidly removed all the wires from a switched box w/o taking a picture cause I want to temporarily remove the switch. but when I when to hook everything back up less the switch, I created a short. let me explain. I have a 3 gang box with switches on it for a fan, the fan's light, and a bank of high hats. I didn't realize all of them were powered by a 4th switch located elsewhere that has no effect on these 3 switches whether it's on or off. now that I undid everything, I can get the fan and fan light to work, but the high hats create a short.

Referring to the diagram (all the grounds removed for simplicity). 1 and 2 have power when the breaker is on. the rest don't. 3,4,5 are the fan. when I hook up black to black, yellow (neutral) to yellow, red unused and capped (not sure why this is there), the fan and fan light, both on separate switches, work fine. if I hook 7 to 2 (neutral to neutral), the circuit shorts. if i just hook 6 to 1 (black to black), lights still don't work. I'm guessing that 6 and 7 might have been part of a switch loop, but no one marked the neutral as hot.

I'm trying to get the 6 and 7, which presumably powers the high hats on a switch to work. can anyone help? does this make sense?

 

What happens if you splice 6&7? My guess is that if you test between 7&2 you will see 120 volts.

 

Welcome to the forums.

C'mon now.... when is the last time you saw a neutral properly remarked ?

You will need to check for power between 6 and ground and 7 and ground.
If you do find power then you have a switch loop.

 

thanks for the replies. 6 and 7 have no power on their own. I can touch them. however, I haven't tried testing with the switch that controls those lights on. Are you saying to join those wires together and then hit the switch, that would close the circuit and the lights would work? Sorry if I'm not following.

joining 7 and 2 causes the breaker to pop

 

Do you have a multimeter, preferably analog? You will need one for testing. (A non contact tester won't work.)

 

I have good one, but it's digital

 

You feel that 6 and 7 go to the recessed lights.

Then you mention turning on another switch that also controls the recessed lights ???
How does that work ??

 

yes, an electrician took the high hats off of the circuit I'm playing around with and made a new wall switch somewhere else. All I know is that they don't work now and wires 6 & 7 being disconnected have taken them off line. Like I said, I got the fan and fan light to work again by hooking them into 1 & 2. but hooking 6 & 7 in straight up blows the fuse, specifically the neutral to neutral

 

Touching 2&7 and it trips the breaker that would lead me to believe that 7 is live from the light fixtures, splicing 6&7 together should turn the lights on,test it

 

thanks. I'll give it a shot

 

no dice. as I mentioned earlier, these wires are dead. remote switch on or off. connecting them together does nothing. I'm really at a loss

 

Not quite sure how you can have fan and fan light on 2 separate switches when you only have 2 conductors going to the fan/ light,you said red was capped off,did this circuit ever work correctly?

 

Tried to read this but got confused. Lets start from wall switch You have a white and black power in? What do you have going out to fan, light? wire color white, black,, or white white, black, red. or another color? Are you going through a remote wireless control? All wireless controls I have worked on only have power to control and than light and fan is controlled by remote.