Yeah, I know how to wire a three way switch, but I have added a wrinkle... I have a three way switch arrangement for the lighting in my kitchen. There are switches at either end of the kitchen, either of which will turn on or off the lighting. A typical three way switch arrangement with two travelers, etc. This works just fine right now.
Here's the wrinkle: I am adding some task lighting, for which I ran the romex from the "primary" three way switch to the lighting. I added a second single pole, single throw switch to the box. I tapped off the AC feed to the three way switch for the power to the task lighting switch. When the three way switch is turned on, the task lighting will turn on as well, if its switch is on, as it will turn off when the three way switch goes off. When the kitchen lighting is off, the task lighting will not turn on and as one would expect, there is no power at the input to the task lighting switch. While I haven't put pencil to paper and drawn this out yet, I am thinking that I am getting a back feed through the "new" circuit that is preventing it from working correctly. This doesn't make total sense to me, unless I am not at the box where the primary feed for the three way circuit is. Either this or the primary circuit is dropping to zero when it is on (potential to ground) because there is now a load on it, effectively cutting off power to the new lighting circuit. I am wondering if I will need to put a diode in series to prevent this from happening. Anyone want to wrap their mind around this one? Dan _______________________________________ http://www.okiebenz.com For new and used parts go to www.okiebenz.com To search list archives http://www.okiebenz.com/archive/ To Unsubscribe or change delivery options go to: http://mail.okiebenz.com/mailman/listinfo/mercedes_okiebenz.com
