Simply Automated UPB 4 way wiring questions

R

rtarver

New Member
I've successfully wired in a few single rocker single dimming transceivers, but I'm a bit stumped on the 3+ way wiring.

I have a set of three switches that control my living room lights.

My questions are:

1) Do I need one USR-40A and two US11-40-W's, or two USR-40A's and one US11-40-W?

2) Once that's figured out, I'm having trouble with the actual wiring. I've attached a link to my wiring as it exists in the home. It's new construction and everything is up to code. I wouldn't post this question, except I've trolled for awhile and had the boxes open at least three times now and haven't been able to figure it out.

Link: https://skydrive.live.com/redir?resid=757FF3DC3D5E22A2!215

<iframe src="https://skydrive.live.com/embed?cid=757FF3DC3D5E22A2&resid=757FF3DC3D5E22A2%21215&authkey=AFBzpw8l3TQm9kM" width="319" height="196" frameborder="0" scrolling="no"></iframe>

Thanks,

Russ
 
Hi there - I'm sorry, it's too late at night (and a few too many rum punches) for me to compare diagrams and get it all figured out, but I'll answer the basics...

Wiring 3/4 way circuits with UPB is MUCH different than traditional wiring. With traditional wiring you have a bunch of mechanical switches that rely on each other being in the perfect situation to have or not have power. With UPB, you have a main switch controlling the load, and the others use the traveller wires to tell the master switch what to do. Whether wiring a 3 way or a 6-way, the wiring is basically all the same... main switch controls load, and the old Red wire typically becomes the traveller for the slave switches.

The first time I did a 4-way, I spent a decent amount of time scratching my head, hooking up wires in different ways, and testing with different types of testers (and left the switches out for 2 days) until it finally "clicked". Now I can open any 3-4 way and figure out what's going on pretty quick and it all makes sense.

To answer your main question - you need one real switch and the rest slaves; so in your case, a single 1140 or 240 with two usr40a's.

And again, without going in depth with your diagrams, most likely you'll put your 1140 where the current 4-way is; then depending on what you have left, you'll use the red, white and black as the travelers to the slave locations; the red is doing the real work, while the white/black are for making the LED light up. There's a brief section about that in the article in my signature about achieving different color effects on the slaves.
 
It's very simple. The master switch controls the load. The slaves only connect to the master.
So what you do is wire the slaves as if they were normal outlets, not switches, with the only difference being you need a traveler back to the master switch.

I don't really understand your picture but if you can follow this, you'll be fine.
Wire the master switch as a "single" switch , meaning it is the only switch controlling the load. So the 'input' to the master is wired as normal, and the 'output' from the master goes directly to the light (it may go through the other boxes to get there, just pass it through directly to the load). Then send the traveler from the master to the other boxes. Other than this wire, the slaves are wired as outlets as said above, meaning they just need power, they have nothing to do with the actual load circuit. The traveler tells the master to control the switch.
Hope this helps.
 
Thanks guys,

So now I have the 1 vs. 2 sorted out between the two different switch types.

As for my diagram, the coding is:

W: White wire
B: Black wire
R: Red wire
G: Ground wire

This is how the existing switches are wired.

The comments on Combined Nuts indicate where I have a number of black or white wires nutted together, but the switch itself is not fed from that common nut.

I'll take these comments home and digest them tonight and see if anything clicks.

Thanks,

Russ
 
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