Z-Wave dimmer connection question

[Dean Roddey]

Ok, I admit it, I'm a software geek and electricity scares me... I wanted to replace a dimmer with a Z-Wave dimmer and wanted to make sure I wasn't going to blow anything up. The dimmer has red, green, black and white wires. The red and green are obvious. But in the other two, load and ground I guess they are, in the switch box I'm going to replace the switch in, are not actually used by the dimmer switch I'm replacing. And there are two lights coming into that box, the one I want and a flourescent in the kitchen which are sharing the load and ground lines, i.e. the load/ground wires from the two different lights are just put together.

So is it going to be kosher to also connect the Z-Wave dimmer's white/black onto those shared load/ground wires? Is the flourescent being in the loop going to cause a problem, even though it's not the one being controlled?

 

[tech-home]

"The red and green are obvious. But in the other two, load and ground I guess they are, in the switch box I'm going to replace the switch in, are not actually used by the dimmer switch I'm replacing"

I sure hope this was a mistake in color.

GREEN=Ground
BLACK=Hot
WHITE=Netrual
RED=Load

It can be shared netrual with no problem.

It also can share ground. Some people hook up netrual to a ground>>Don't.
I couldn't tell by your post if this is what you mean.


Is the flourescent being in the loop going to cause a problem, even though it's not the one being controlled?
Shouldn't be a problem beauty of Zwave


http://www.act-solutions.com/pdfs/HomePro/...RW100_instr.pdf

 

[Dean Roddey]

Yes, sorry on the colors. I was kind of using the colors of the wires in the existing stuff in the box, not the new switch. So currently, they have a red/black going to the actual dimmer, and load/grounds from both the flourescent and the light I want to control coming into the box and being tied together and don't go to the dimmer at all.

So I'd end up taking the existing red/black to the swithc red/black, and the green to the existing shared ground (the bare wire) and the white to the existing shared white, right?

 

[tech-home]

"So currently, they have a red/black going to the actual dimmer, and load/grounds from both the flourescent and the light I want to control coming into the box and being tied together and don't go to the dimmer at all."

I kinda got lost here. The load should go to the dimmer should be the Red wire.
The Light has to go to the dimmer somehow.

"So I'd end up taking the existing red/black to the swithc red/black, and the green to the existing shared ground (the bare wire) and the white to the existing shared white, right?"

Yes, Assuming the electrican actually did his job properly.

 

[Dean Roddey]

Yep, it worked ok. The fact plate I got is a little too tight and pushing the unit addition button is kind if hard, but you only have to do it once.

 

[tech-home]

Awesome glad I didn't help burn your house down...


Dean please post when you get Zwave support done. I really want to try your software out.



Brian

 

[Dean Roddey]

Will do. I'm going to get a first drop of the new release out next week to the old timers to let them vet it. Once it's looking good, I'll post in my announcement thread for anyone who wants to play with the release before it goes golden. It's got a lot of other nice new stuff as well.