Feed and switch wire at an intermediate...

TJC1 · Sep 3, 2021

Evening all

Try to rack my brain about whether this would work.....

Customer on a job wants to add a 3rd switch on a lighting circuit, however it is near impossible to get from the 2way switch but easy to get from the first switch

Will having the intermediate switch where the feed and switch wire work.....

Cheers

T

goasis · Sep 3, 2021

Yup,So instead of joining the 3rd cores together at the inter, feed in joined to go to common one of the 2 way switches, light feed joined to go off to common on the other 2 way, strappers as per usual on the inter.

TJC1 · Sep 3, 2021

Amazing! Cant quite follow that but Im sure I can make it work ?

goasis · Sep 3, 2021

Ha! Someone may explain it better or if you're lucky, draw a pretty picture!

So using your colours of choice:

L1 brown, l2 grey black common at the 2 ways

At the intermediate: brown and greys into L1 and L2 as normal.
Join one black to permanent live in
Join others black to switched live to light

littlespark · Sep 3, 2021

Or join the 2 blacks… live onto L1 with the brown, switchwire off L2 with the greys.

timhoward · Sep 3, 2021

Don't know if this helps. Orange is a switch.
Middle one is intermediate, either as shown, or crossed over.

[ElectriciansForums.net] Feed and switch wire at an intermediate...

timhoward · Sep 3, 2021

I suppose the easiest way of thinking about it is to take the normal basic 2 way switch setup with 2 strappers between L1 to L1 and L2 to L2. Then the feed to the common on one switch, and the load from the common on the other switch.
All you are doing is extending each common to the middle using the 3rd core.

The intermediate switch is just swapping the two strappers over and could be at any point on the circuit, or not be there at all.

Lucien Nunes · Sep 4, 2021

To sum up:
Either of the two normal configurations will work just fine.
@timhoward shows the 'conventional' option above.
@littlespark describes the 'conversion' option. In this case, where all three terminals of both 2-ways are connected together with L & SL paralleled to L1 and L2, it doesn't matter where in the run of strappers they tap in provided they are both on the same side of the intermediate switch.

theshaniqua · Sep 8, 2021

timhoward said:
The intermediate switch is just swapping the two strappers over and could be at any point on the circuit, or not be there at all.

So it is possible to have this 3 way set up without an intermediate?

loz2754 · Sep 8, 2021

theshaniqua said:
So it is possible to have this 3 way set up without an intermediate?

No

timhoward · Sep 8, 2021

theshaniqua said:
So it is possible to have this 3 way set up without an intermediate?

If you want 3 or more switches the ones in the middle need to be intermediates.
The switch wire can be at any of them.

A completely alternative strategy is to look at Quinetics wireless switches.

theshaniqua · Sep 9, 2021

Had to read this thread a few times, but I think I got it.

So my understanding is that these are the two options described above - please correct me if I am wrong (and forgive my crude PowerPoint drawings)

and

telectrix · Sep 9, 2021

option 2 is wrong. the black should link the 2 commons of Sw! and SW2 but go straight through intermediate with no connections to the switch itself.

cliffed · Sep 9, 2021

telectrix said:
option 2 is wrong. the black should link the 2 commons of Sw! and SW2 but go straight through intermediate with no connections to the switch itself.

Option 2 would still work I do believe ?

littlespark · Sep 9, 2021

cliffed said:
Option 2 would still work I do believe ?

No, it wouldn’t. Draw in the lines, and you’ll see. Changing any switch has no effect as the same cables are paralleled at another switch.

The black in the commons just gets linked through the intermediate.