Here's an easy one. Please help!


  #1  
Old 12-10-04, 06:45 PM
m3r0v1ng1an
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Here's an easy one. Please help!

I'm replacing a regular three way switch with a three way dimmer. The wires in the box are red, white, black and copper. However the wires on the Leviton dimmer are red, black, brown and green. Obviously I'm a complete moron because the diagram that came with the dimmer has me completely baffled. BTW, the white wire in the box was connected to the black screw of the old switch, so I am assuming that I should do the following:

white to brown
copper to green
black to black
red to red

Is this correct? Thanks for your help.
 

Last edited by m3r0v1ng1an; 12-10-04 at 06:55 PM.
  #2  
Old 12-10-04, 09:12 PM
J
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The literature that came with the dimmer should identify one of those wires as the "common" wire. If not in the literature, perhaps there is some marking on the dimmer itself. Or if you tell us the model number, we can probably figure it out for you.

Clearly bare to green is correct. So start with that.

Now the white wire was connected to the black screw before, so that makes the white wire in the box the "common". So it should be connected to whichever dimmer wire is described as the common.

Then you can connect black and red from the box to the remaining two dimmer wires (in either order).

If you are really stumped after all this, my guess is that the dimmer's red wire is the common. So connect it to the white wire from the box. If you guess wrong, it won't hurt anything. The worst that will happen is that it won't work properly and you'll need to guess again.

By the way, congratulations on noting which wire was connected to the black screw on the old switch. This fact alone eliminates you from the moron class and darn near puts you in the genius class!
 

Last edited by John Nelson; 12-10-04 at 09:24 PM.
 

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