I recently purchased some motion sensors to control the lights in our hallway. There are three locations where they will be installed. These sensors, Pass & Seymour RW3U600, require a neutral and one location has no neutral.
Can I bring a neutral from a nearby receptacle that is on a different circuit or must the neutral be the same that is used by this lighting circuit?
No. The neutral needs to come from the circuit supplying the outlet. It must be in the same cable or raceway.
I'm guessing this is a switch leg? do you have access from the attic?
additional complication - you state "hallway" singular but "locations" plural. This implies to me that you have at least three switches controlling one light or group of lights. That means that these motion sensors should be 3-way or 4-way type with the one in the middle of the run being a 4-way. The spec sheet for this devices lists it as 3-way not 4-way.
Additionally if the device requires a neutral you would need to run the neutral to all three locations, not just the closest one, which means you may have to source some 4w+G Romex and may be running into box fill problems... not saying you can't do this, but you might be looking at a bigger project (e.g. breaking the boxes out of the wall, replacing with deep boxes, repulling wire) than you originally thought.
Have you sketched out the wiring for the light and the three switches as it exists now? If you could post that on photobucket or something we might be more help.
nate
No. You risk overloading the neutral from the other circuit (and causing a fire).
Each circuit breaker measures the current on the hot (and thus neutral) for its circuit. The breaker on the "other circuit" would not be measuring the "extra" current from the other circuit. And therefore not protecting that neutral from an overcurrent situation.
Also some special breakers monitor the neutral as well as the hot. And you will have trouble if you use another circuit's neutral.
And for troubleshooting electrical problems in your house, an electrician would expect everything on each circuit to be using that circuit's neutral. So if troubleshoooting either of those circuits in the future, this sort of "hack job" could result in more time tracking down the problem and more $$ charged by the electrician.
lway. There are three locations where they will be installed. These sensors , Pass & Seymour RW3U600, require a neutral and one location has no neutral . Can I bring a neutral from a nearby receptacle that is on a different cir cuit or must the neutral be the same that is used by this lighting circuit?
Nope. Must be the same circuit.
If I understand the definition of "switch leg" correctly the answer to your question is no... I think. These switches control the ceiling lights in two intersecting hallways. The "intersecting hallways" answers another question of yours.
The spec sheet does say only 3-way but their web page says 3-way and
4-way and their tech support claims as many as six (6) sensors can be wired together to control one light or group of lights.Currently the only location that has no neutral is the location where the 4-way switch is located. The location where the load is connected to has a neutral but it is from a different circuit as well. That's why I only asked about the one location.
I do have access to the attic. It does appear that I have a lot more work ahead of me than I planned. Crap.
I have up loaded two images to photobucket.
One shows the wiring as it is today and the other shows how the three sensors will be wired. If you see anything that's wrong let me know.
Thanks
This is clearly why new Nec requires a neutral at all switch locations. About five years ago I installed a set of three way motion detector switches in a firehouse, top and bottom of a large stairway. They were made by Hubbell. I don't have the model number, but they didn't require a neutral, and have been working flawlessly.They may still make the same ones, or something similar
Do you know if they will work with the new CFL type bulbs ? Some of the other things do not play well with the CFL bulbs.
On Thursday 21 March 2013 16:41 Bill wrote in alt.home.repair:
Also, disconnecting one circuit feed at the breaker panel risks having the neutral going live if cross connected to another cirtcuit.
This, in addition to the above, and the fact that it trips RCDs/GFCIs is why such practise is explicity prohibited under the British regulations.
Doesn't the NEC have something to say on this?
On Thursday 21 March 2013 20:08 RBM wrote in alt.home.repair:
That's forward thinking...
Useful if we (in the EU) did that. There's a lot of problems with dimmer switches, particularly electronic ones (that is, more complicated than a simple triac/diac/pot) causing flashing when "off" when combined with LED and CFL lamps - all because the switch has to pass some current to power its own circuits, even when notionall off.
Never a problem with a lump of tungsten to neutral - but that fraction of a mA is enough to build up in the capacitors in electronic lamps and cause blinking.
Personally, I wish they'd bite the bullet and devise a *universal* 3 connection lamp holder - live/neutral and control - and get around all the problems with dimming by butchering the supply waveform.
*uviversal* - not one for GEC, one for Philips, one for Megathingy from china, etc etc...
Don't know for sure, but I believe they need a minimum connected wattage. The ones I installed are controlling two 2/32 watt fluorescent fixtures. When two bulbs in either fixture burn out, they stop working until I replace the bulbs
Yes, it says you can't do it. Doing so would trip GFCI's and AFCI's here too.
It would also be interisting to know if they work with the old ballast and the newer electronic ballast as well for the long tube fluorescent lights.
On Thursday 21 March 2013 20:55 RBM wrote in alt.home.repair:
;->>
That, I can tell you they do. These two fixtures were 2/40 T12 with magnetic ballasts originally. I converted them to 32 T8 electronic less than a year ago.
Regardless, I had a thought. Since these are motion sensors they don't need to be three-way. Perhaps you could just wire single pole units at each location. You would just need to change some of the splices in the existing wiring to make sure that you have a neutral, hot, switch leg, and ground at each location. Basically putting all of the sensors in parallel. You would lose the ability to turn on at one location and off at another manually.
Fine on that. Those electronic ballast sure weigh a lot less than the older transformer types. I replaces a lot of them where I worked. Sure wish they had those when I first started, especially for the 8 foot long tubes. Just about all I could do to hold on to those with one hand and put the screw in with the other hand, especially when up about 10 feet on a ladder. This was in a very large industrial plant. We did lights when other projects were slack.
Something's not right here. If your sketch is correct then by the NEC the neutral must be present in the "family room" switch box because the sums of the currents in a given cable/raceway must sum to zero.
You sure it's not a switch leg, or that your diagram is accurate?
(I'm not saying that you're wrong, just that *something* is wrong...)
nate
Well, as much as I love the weight of the electronic ballasts, I LOVE the screw gun even more. I remember the days of holding a 4/96 pan up against the ceiling with my head, while I bang a hole through the sheet metal with my awl, then stick a #10 slotted sheet metal screw through the hole, and have to screw a half dozen turns before I could relax. Nowadays the sheet metal is paper thin, the ballasts are feather light, no wonder I don't have those bulging biceps anymore.
*Roy you caused me to have flashbacks of my youth. My father worked on many shopping centers when I was a teenager. I remember doing it exactly like you said with the awl and using my head a support. I miss that about as much as I miss drilling into masonry with a hammer and hand drill to insert a few Rawl plugs.
HomeOwnersHub website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here. All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.