![]() There are basically three different ways you can set up three-way switches to control the connected light. When you switch on the light, any of these wires get hot as per configurations. There are three wires that connect to the two switches and they are two black wires and a common wire. The light switch is to barge in the hot wire when the switch is turned off. When it comes to the hot wire or the charged wire from the power source goes through the switches. The ground wire goes to the grounding screws. The white wire from the power source goes directly to the light fixture. Two out of these three terminals have same color while the remaining terminal called the common terminal generally has a darker color. Instead of 2 terminal screws and a ground screw, 3-way switch has 3 terminal screws and a ground screw. The Power Source Wires go From Switch to Switch The Power Source Wires Enter the Light Fixture Box The Power Source Wires Enter One Switch Box so 14Ga minimum, means not a larger number (smaller wire) than 14Ga. Or perhaps you are confused about wire gauges? 12 Ga is LARGER than 14Ga. the hassle of running two cables.) If you have a 3-way switch setup, you need /3 between the two switches. Or you can run two cables to the switch location (depending on the relative price of buying /3 cable. If power runs to a light, and then a single cable runs to a switch location, that cable needs to be /3. So, if power runs to the light switch, and then power runs to the lights, /2 is fine everywhere on that light circuit. Typically, you only need /3 wire for "what would have been a switch loop" (I suppose it still is, just less confusing to neophytes than the hot white version) and between 3-way switches unless doing a Multi-Wire Branch Circuit (MWBC) - which you don't mention. In modern practice where you must supply neutral to switch locations: 14Ga wire is ONLY fine on a 15A circuit.12Ga wire is fine on a 15 or 20A circuit.It's about using the backstab connections, which you should not use You see some sort of 15A only language molded in, you will see that They are rated for the use (and usually if You can have more 20A outlets,īut you don't need them. Place you MUST have a 20A outlet is if it's the only outlet (simplex,Īnd only one of it) on a 20A circuit. 15A (duplex) receptacles are fine on a 15A or 20A circuit.Any active device that will work in one switch box will work in the other. With 2-wire control one switch is the "line switch" (common connected to the line hot) and the other switch is the "load switch" (common connected to the load).īut with 3-wire control both switches are hard connected to the line hot, and both switches are hard connected to the load. With 2-wire control the hot switches from one traveler to the other when the "line switch" is flipped. One thing though would that if later you wanted to put a receptacle near that switch box, you would be able to get an unswitched line hot and neutral from that switch box.Īnother feature of 3-wire control is that the same wire between the switches is always the line hot in both boxes. AFIK this would only be important if there was an active device in that box that required a constant line hot. To implement 2-wire control there needs to be a /3 cable between the two switches and to implement 3-wire control there needs to be a /4 cable between the two switches.ĪFIK the advantage of the 3-wire control is that there is a continuing line hot in both switch boxes whereas with 2-wire control the line hot in one switch box is interrupted during the process of switching at the other box. The traditional way in the US is called 2-wire control, and the new alternative is called 3-wire control. Since the OP is a software engineer he might well be interested in the fact that there is an alternative way to wire a pair of what we in the US call "3-way" switches.
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