3 way light switch dimmers

[DrDenny]

Can I have a dimmer on each of the 2 switches? On sw1 I have a hot and

2 travlers, sw2 has the 2 travelers and the load(light fixture). I can only get a dimmer to work at sw1. Do I need a second hot wire a sw2?

Thanks, Denis

[mm]

Well, at sw2, you could put in a regular 3-way switch, and a dimmer next to it connected to the single wire, and that would *further* dim the lignt, I think, but I don't think you could get it to full brightness if you have the dimmer turned down at the other end.

Wait a second. Maybe that's what you mean about the second hot. If you ran a hot from sw1 to sw2=location but connected it to a dimmer, you could get the brightness up to full level, but then how would you turn it down at the sw-1 location.

This needs someone more clever than I am.

Whatever you try, I'd set it up on a table first, and plug the whole thing into a wall outlet, before I bothered installing it. The heavy version of wires with alligator clips on each end are quite useful for things like this.

Remove NOPSAM to email me. Please let me know if you have posted also.

[Joseph Meehan]

I believe there is an X-10 system that will handle that need. That way you use one master and the others control the master through the existing wiring, no need for any travelers.

Try

[RBM]

Standard three way dimmers won't work properly, however all dimmer manufacturers make electronic master slave three way dimmers. Check out Lutron brand dimmers, "Maestro"

[sleepdog]

For a standard 3-way switch setup I think you can only have one of the two switches be a dimmer. I cannot recall if this is an NEC thing or limitation of the hardware. Might have something to do with the fact that dimmer switches tend to get kind of hot. I recently installed a dimmer on a three way and l limited the wattage to 390w on a 600w dimmer. I think NEC allows up to 80% wattage on the dimmer rating and I'm at 65%. hooray for me

[Mark Lloyd]

In the X10 system, one of the devices (called "master") replaces one of the switches. It is wired as a single switch (using one of the traveler wires). The module has an additional (red) wire which is connected using the other traveler to a button at the other end.

X10 3-way module

(hot) (blue)|----|(black)

-----------------| |-----------------------*-------- (to light) | | | | | | | |(red) slave | |-----------------------switch |----|

[Joe]

You need a dimmer designed for this application, the Lutron "Maestro" mentioned earlier will work. I have Lutron's "Spacer" which also comes with a remote control Joe