Trouble With Dimmer Switch

Hello, First Time posting something here so I hope it's at the correct page.

Here's my problem; I am trying to connect a dimmer switch to a light fixture in my kitchen. I am getting power to the switch box from a junction box I tapped into that's now hidden behind drywall in the ceiling. The box also supplies recessed lights in the same room. I put a dimmer on the recessed lights and those lights work fine. I have a wire coming from the junction box into the switch box and another wire going from the switch box to the light. I have power to the switch box but when I install the dimmer the lights won't come on. If I touch the wires together without a switch or put a regular switch in everything works. I'm guessing that since the light fixture is getting power from the same source as the recessed lights that has a dimmer it is causing it not to work. In the same box that I want to put the dimmer for the light fixture I have a GFCI that is on a separate circuit. I thought that I could tap into that to power the light so I removed the GFCI and installed the dimmer and everything worked. I replaced the GFCI with pigtails to power the light but once I put everything together the light would not come on.

How do I make this work?

Thanks for the help
Rob

 

Welcome to the forums.

That tells me the circuit is wired correctly and the dimmer is at fault.
Are you using the correct dimmer..... LED's, incandescent, other ?

 

Pete,

I have 2 of these one is powering 5 of these and the other is powering this.

The dimmer is working because when I disconnect the GFCI and just install the dimmer the lights come on. I asked an electrician and he said to come out of the load side of the GFCI and it will work but when the GFCI is tripped the light won't work. I read that I could pigtail off the GFCI power source but it didn't work, maybe I wired it wrong? I ran a pigtail from the black and white wires coming in the box, I connected one black and white pigtail to the GFCI and one black pigtail to the dimmer, I connected the white wire going to the fixture together with the other white wires and connected the other wire (red) coming from the dimmer to the black wire going to the fixture and connected all the ground wires together. There's a red wire with a white stripe coming from the dimmer that I capped off.

 

Are you saying the feed coming out of the hidden junction box (no-no) is on the dimmer for the recessed lights, such that when you dim the lights, the feed voltage decreases correspondingly? Sounds to me that you aren't connecting something properly. A diagram and some pictures would help.

 

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Before I remodeled the kitchen there used to be a drop ceiling with two 2x4 florescent lights (2 bulbs each). They had the junction box floating on the drop ceiling supplying the lights and receptacles along the counter by the stove and sink. I mounted the box to the floor joist and just ran two wires to the recessed lights and the light fixture as the diagram shows. But for whatever reason the dimmer won't work unless it's on it's own circuit as when I removed the GFCI and powered the light with that circuit. But when anything else is sharing either circuit be it the one in the junction box or with the GFCI the dimmer won't work. But as I originally stated if I touch the wires together or use a regular single pole switch everything works. It's frustrating.

Thanks for the help...

 

The dimmer you linked to is a 600w incandescent type dimmer. Although I couldn't find it in the Lutron specs.... most incandescent dimmers require a minimum of 40w of load to work. The light fixture you linked to was only the fixture. The bulb choice is yours. If you are using three LED bulbs in that fixture..... the load is below the dimmer threshold. You'd need the 1000 bulbs/product/202801/LUT-10053.html

 

Actually I linked to the wrong switch, I actually have this one but you taught me something that I didn't know. If I'm understanding you correctly if the switch is rated at 150 - 600 I have to have bulbs amounting to at least 150 before it will work? I originally had 60 watt LED's but I noticed that the recessed lights won't dim all the way down which I want this light fixture to be able to do so I tried 3 60 watt incandescent bulbs and it still didn't work.

I have an older twist knob dimmer down stairs for the basement lights, I'm going to take that out and try it in the kitchen to see if that will work.

 

No, those are RATINGS, but the higher rated switch would presumably require a larger minimum load. Three 60w incandescent bulbs should have worked.