Need help installing GE 3-way Z-Wave switch!

[mikejrc]

My main point is that these GE Switches only support 1 of the 7 industry standard ways of a 3-wire circuit. Basically if you don't have a dedicated traveler from switch box #1 to switch box #2 it won't work. With the GE switch traveler (yellow) is isolated from the electrical circuit.

I am very glad there is an electrician involved in this thread as I am in hopes he can prove me wrong. I dropped over $1,000 on these switches in the last month and would really like to be wrong in my findings.

myyazz33 the most important thing about 3 ways is that in order to control one load or loads, both 3 way switches have 3 screws, 2 screws are the travelers, the other screw is a common. Now the common, in one switch feeds the power to the travelers. at the other 3 way switch the common screw will connect to your load (a light in this case)

there are many ways to wire a 3 way thats correct but both 3 way switches will operate as i stated before. what changes is were you bring your feed (hot), you can bring it to the light fixture from there to one of the switches or you can bring it to either one of the switches.

in the case of the GE switches they have to be installed where the auxiliary switch doesnt have the feed, the primary switch will have the feed. also the load (light) will be connected to the primary switch as well. the auxiliary switch when pressed or flipped will send a control signal telling the primary to let the current flow to the light.

so yes this GE switch requires to do a little finding and trace correctly those wires to know which one is which.

 

[mikejrc]

I actually ran into this exact issue last weekend when I was installing a new switch. Bare ground got pushed against a terminal of another switch in the same gang box, and blew a breaker (plus damaged the stranded ground wire as it melted onto the terminal). I am going to get some insulated ground wire, and start replacing those bare 'jumpers' whenever I have to work on a switch (assuming this doesn't violate code).

that would be a major task to replace all the ground wires. you would have to buy what is called an "insulated ground pigtail"

what i would suggest is to use electrical tape and go over all the screws. usually putting the tape all around the switch where the terminals are would do it.
another thing i do is before i install anything i form the wires the way i want them to be inside the box, then pull them out and install the device.
when you push the device back in the box chances are they will form back to the way you previously had them.

 

[oberkc]

My main point is that these GE Switches only support 1 of the 7 industry standard ways of a 3-wire circuit. Basically if you don't have a dedicated traveler from switch box #1 to switch box #2 it won't work. With the GE switch traveler (yellow) is isolated from the electrical circuit.

I am not even sure that I would describe the GE switches "standard" by any measure. But technology is changing even the light switch, so the very idea of a standard is changing.

I am very glad there is an electrician involved in this thread as I am in hopes he can prove me wrong. I dropped over $1,000 on these switches in the last month and would really like to be wrong in my findings.

My suggestion is to fret not. I glanced at the instructions for the GE switch and believe that an existing three-way can be retrofit with these GE switches, regardless (one exception that I can think of...power at fixture) of the existing wiring. The trick is to identify the existing wiring, including neutral and supply. It is nearly guaranteed that there are three conductors (plus ground) between two switch locations of existing three-way installations. Power can be supplied at either switch or at fixture. There is usually a wire (two or three conductor, depending on location of power and wiring technique) between a switch location and fixture. These usually are enough to allow wiring the GE switches per the instructions.

I use a lot of insteon switches. These also require unique wiring compared to historical standards. NEVER have I had to add additional wiring.

 

[dignan17]

Thank you so much for your help, everyone. I really appreciate the time you took to help me with this.

In the end, I remembered that one of my friends is essentially a contractor (unlicensed, but he knows much of this stuff). He's not an electrician, but he knows the basics, and he's the best "free*" option I have for getting eyes-on with the problem.

*free as in beer...beer I will buy for him the next time we're out

He checked the diagrams before coming over, and once he saw my wiring in person he had definite ideas of what to do.

In the end, we figured out which socket needed to be the primary switch. We then fished the neutral wire bundle out from the back of the box, giving us connections for five wires in total, so the primary switch was easy. For the secondary switch, we took the two black wires in the second box and tied them together, and left the neutral tucked in the back of the box. This ended up working perfectly. After a couple trial and errors on two of the switches (figuring out where the primary needed to go), we had the whole thing wired up in about 30 minutes total.

Thanks again for the assistance, guys. I did end up absorbing all your advice and using it to solve the situation along with my friend. I think the instructions with the switch could be clearer and account for more wiring configurations, but also the wires in my walls aren't very well labeled, so that hurt as well.

 

[myyaz33]

Thank you so much for your help, everyone. I really appreciate the time you took to help me with this.

In the end, I remembered that one of my friends is essentially a contractor (unlicensed, but he knows much of this stuff). He's not an electrician, but he knows the basics, and he's the best "free*" option I have for getting eyes-on with the problem.

*free as in beer...beer I will buy for him the next time we're out

He checked the diagrams before coming over, and once he saw my wiring in person he had definite ideas of what to do.

In the end, we figured out which socket needed to be the primary switch. We then fished the neutral wire bundle out from the back of the box, giving us connections for five wires in total, so the primary switch was easy. For the secondary switch, we took the two black wires in the second box and tied them together, and left the neutral tucked in the back of the box. This ended up working perfectly. After a couple trial and errors on two of the switches (figuring out where the primary needed to go), we had the whole thing wired up in about 30 minutes total.

Thanks again for the assistance, guys. I did end up absorbing all your advice and using it to solve the situation along with my friend. I think the instructions with the switch could be clearer and account for more wiring configurations, but also the wires in my walls aren't very well labeled, so that hurt as well.

Excellent news... The OP got his answer, now are you guys still willing to lend me a helping hand?

 

[myyaz33]

Ok, here is a mock up with how my upstairs 3-ways are wired. Can anyone help me wire up the GE switches properly?

 

[myyaz33]

Here is the GE wiring diagram.

 

[oberkc]

I am afraid that I may have been over optimistic about the ability to wire one of these things up with typical existing wires such as with your mockup. The master requires four conductors Hot, Neutral, Load, and Traveler (plus ground). The only way I am seeing to make this work is to provide a line to both slave and master boxes or to run a fourth conductor between the light and master boxes. Another issue is that the instructions show the slave with green, black, and yellow (no mention of a red/white). Do your instructions show the purpose for the red/white wire on the slave switch?

If you can confirm the meaning of the red/white wire and your ability to add a fourth conductor, I think I can provide a wiring diagram.

 

[myyaz33]

I am afraid that I may have been over optimistic about the ability to wire one of these things up with typical existing wires such as with your mockup. The master requires four conductors Hot, Neutral, Load, and Traveler (plus ground). The only way I am seeing to make this work is to provide a line to both slave and master boxes or to run a fourth conductor between the light and master boxes. Another issue is that the instructions show the slave with green, black, and yellow (no mention of a red/white). Do your instructions show the purpose for the red/white wire on the slave switch?

If you can confirm the meaning of the red/white wire and your ability to add a fourth conductor, I think I can provide a wiring diagram.

The red/white should connect to hot. I expected it not to work, but was really hoping I could be proved wrong. I can't run an additional conductor... At least the picture will show others what WON'T work with these switches so they can save their frustration for some other HA project.

panamanian- any thoughts?

 

[tmbrown97]

I'm afraid your mockup doesn't tell me enough, but I've never come across a 3-way situation I couldn't make work - in my current house or my last house.

Basically I suggest you pull the wire out of the box completely - especially if you're using romex - so you can see what's in each romex bundle. With my current house I just did a whole bunch of UPB switches which seem to have the exact same requirements as your GE Z-Wave switches do, according to the diagram you posted.

In most of my boxes, there's one set of wires coming into the box - it's white/black/bare... then there's another one - white/black/red/bare. At the other end, it's the exact same. The bundle with the red is the travellers between the switches, and the black/white sets are power at one end, and fixture at the other.

If you follow this thinking through, technically the Blue wire from your switch wants to be connected to the black from the black/white in the auxiliary box, the red from the traveller would go to the yellow, the black would go to the incoming hot black wire, and white to the neutral (they'll all be tied together). Out of the traveller wires, the red is the one you'll hook to yellow between the switches. You'll use the black from the travellers to carry your load power from the blue of the switch to the load (meaning in the aux box, just tie the blacks together - and in the main box, tie the blue to the black from the bundle that has the red). This is harder to explain without a diagram but I don't have anything handy to draw with.

Can you pull the wire bundles out so we can clearly see what they're all doing (don't remove any wire nuts or anything yet) and take a picture? It'd make it much easier to see and figure this out with you.

Also, a little trick - if you don't know which end is hot and which end is fixture... most of the time there's more stuff in the box so you'll see that one end has other stuff connected to the same black wire - that's generally your incoming power source... but if there's no obvious way to tell, I generally remove all the switches and separate all the wiring, then turn th power back on long enough to use a non-contact voltage sensor to see which wire is the hot one... then kill the power and proceed.

this feels like a ramble - it's late... but if you can get some pictures it'll help.

 

[oberkc]

... With my current house I just did a whole bunch of UPB switches which seem to have the exact same requirements as your GE Z-Wave switches do, according to the diagram you posted....

I understand UPB and insteon to have similar requirements....each switch has three wires (plus ground): hot, neutral, and load. Most "normal" Z-wave switches were this way as well, I understood. However, this particular Z-wave master switch has four wires (plus ground): hot, neutral, load, and traveler. Because of this, I am not sure that it is accurate to say that these switches have the "exact same requirements" as UPB. It appears that GE has thought to try to reduce cost by creating some unique configuration that saves a bit of money over two full-capability Z-wave switches. Unfortunately, this is looking like it has made it incompatible with the wiring in certain 3-way installations.

In most of my boxes, there's one set of wires coming into the box - it's white/black/bare... then there's another one - white/black/red/bare. At the other end, it's the exact same. The bundle with the red is the travellers between the switches, and the black/white sets are power at one end, and fixture at the other.

Unfortunately, this is not the way the mockup wiring is. The mockup has power supplied at the fixture box, rather than one of the switch boxes. While I agree that the GE kit can be installed in a circuit wired like your house (which is the same way my house is typically wired), I am afraid that the mockup method is the one exception that I was concerned about....power supplied to the fixture box.

BTW, I thought the mockup was an outstanding way to describe your installation, perhaps the best I have seen on forums such as this. Is is absolutely complete, compared to the actual installation? Are the existing switch boxes single gang, with no other switches in those locations and no other wires going to the boxes?

 

[pbeaulieu]

If you can not run additional wires, is there any way to get power (hot) into each of the switch boxes? I believe that would be another way to solve the problem.

 

[oberkc]

If you can not run additional wires, is there any way to get power (hot) into each of the switch boxes? I believe that would be another way to solve the problem.

Agreed. The only concern that I came up with was not knowing the consequences (if any) if the power at the switch boxes and light fixture was on a different leg (or phase if you prefer) of the electrical system. I think, ideally, that power to the switch boxes should be on the same circuit powering the light fixture.

 

[pbeaulieu]

Agreed. The only concern that I came up with was not knowing the consequences (if any) if the power at the switch boxes and light fixture was on a different leg (or phase if you prefer) of the electrical system. I think, ideally, that power to the switch boxes should be on the same circuit powering the light fixture.

I agree they all should be on the same circuit.

 

[pbeaulieu]

I am recently trained on Leviton Vizia RF+ (z-wave). Leviton does have a solution or work around for this type of situation. Maybe you can do the same thing with GE or one of the other manufacturers of z-wave equipment.

The Leviton Vizia RF+ solution I would use is a VRS15-1L load controlling switch (ie. the master) and a VRCS1-1L 1 button controller. The VRS15 only needs a hot, neutral, and load wire. The VRCS1 needs a hot and neutral. No matter where the line power comes in be it the switch box or fixture you would be able to configure the VRS15 and VRCS1. You would then need to include both into the z-wave network and associate the VRS15 to the VRCS1 controller.