I replaced a light switch at the top of my cellar stairs with one that has a night light; when the switch is off a light comes on to show where the thing is.
House is 125 years old and has old and new wiring, the switch I replaced has two wires covered in cloth, not color coded at all. I screwed one wire into the left side, one on the right, could get the lights to come on and off but not the night light. Moved things around and the night lite comes on but the cellar lights won't. Switch has two poles on the left, two on the right and a green ground pole.
Nothing is idiot proof, but can you explain in small words an idiot resistant way to make this happen.
Thanks, Dan
Might need to connect one wire to both left side terminals. This would mean getting a small jumper wire. Seems funny that the switch wouldnt be internally jumpered though.
Usually I think when there are two with two colors on the same side like that, one is a 'load' and the other is a 'line'. The line is so that power stays on all the time to other circuits downstream, the load is the circuit you want switched by the switch. I am postulating that the nite light gets power from the line and the bulb gets power from the load.
not an electrician but I did stay at a holiday inn once
you can also think of line and load as power in from breaker panel and power out to switched appliance.
but now I think about it more if you only have two wires at the switch, you must have power coming from the light. That means your switch is just completing the circuit. and if so, then I don't know how to make the nightlight come on (complete the circuit for the nightlight) and not complete circuit for the light bulb.
Dan, are you sure that new switch is "illuminated-when-off" versus "illuminated when on"?
- Illuminated when off helps you find the switch in the dark, for controlling a light that can be seen from the switch.
- Illuminated when on tells you when a remote-location light is on, like your cellar light that's controlled by a single switch at the top of the stairs.
the pic above looks like Leviton 5226, which is the illuminated when on type. sounds like that's not what you want.
Do you have a ground hooked up?
I was going to install some motion light switches in my house, but the wiring was old enough not to have a ground (yes, I know) so the switch wouldn't work.
AWSX1686 said:
Do you have a ground hooked up?
I was going to install some motion light switches in my house, but the wiring was old enough not to have a ground (yes, I know) so the switch wouldn't work.
If you don't have a ground wire you should have conduit so you can ground to the box. But also I don't think ground should be the normal path for circuit connectivity.
Are the two wires from the old switch the only ones in the box? If so you won't be able to use that switch. If, however there's a neutral in there then you can. You need to connect the brass screw to power (use a meter to find out which wire that is), the silver screw to neutral (these would be at least two wires that are currently just connected together but not to the old switch and the black (or dark) screw goes out to the light. Perhaps you could post a picture of what's going on in the box.
Angry: The pic is a random off the interweb image, I do want light when off so you can find the switch.
APE: Only two wires in the box, I planned to ground to the box.
Everyone else: Thanks for the input, making bushings today, flying tomorrow sooooo I'll get back to it someday; for now the lights go on and off on demand.
At a guess, you only have a switch leg in the box and not actual 110V. Meaning you have two hots, no neutral, no ground. Without the neutral and ground, you may not be able to make the switch light up when you need it to. Hooked up one way it's probably getting its neutral through the filament of the light bulb in the circuit and the switch light works. Hooked up the other way, you get nothing.
Grounds don't matter in this situation, and truthfully aren't necessary to make anything "work". By grounds I think you guys mean the green or bare bond wires. These are required by code now, but weren't in the past. Either if they are there or not they shouldn't be carrying any sort of current unless there is a fault of some sort.
To the OP if you want a light to illuminate when the light the switch is controlling is off, or on for that matter you need a neutral wire to complete the circuit. On your generic picture the upper two screws on either side of that switch are what the switch controls. The other screw on the left side(silver color) is where the neutral goes to complete the circuit to make the light on the switch illuminate. Without that path back to the neutral bar in the panel it will not work. even if you want to install the type that lights up the handle when the switch is off you need a neutral, and my guess is you have a switch that is wired as a switch loop which is very typical of older wiring, and even still used today legally. It saves wire, but you have only one hot wire(usually the white)carrying the power to the switch, and power traveling back up to the light on the black wire, with the neutral wire never going to the switch. It's actually a pretty good way of wiring, but doesn't allow for any options in the future.
To summarize what others have written. With only two wires in the box you can't use that switch to do what you want to do.
I have found that this site is a very good reference.
http://www.howtowirealightswitch.com/
Not sure it has your exact answer but it is a great reference for those of use that don't wire things every day and need a refresher on things,
In reply to 914Driver :
On another note I don't think that those switches are meant to be used how you want to use it. I always thought that the light should be on when power travels through the switch telling you that what ever is attached to the switch is powered. I have two of these in my house and both are for outside lights. The red light is on to tell me at a glance if my outside lights are on. Very usefull. I am not sure that you can wire it to do what you want even if the wires are there to do it.
I just purchased some three way switches that have a little green LED on them that work the way you want. If the light is off the led is on and it is cool because it does not matter what switch I turn the light off with the led in both switches comes on when the light is turned off. This is particularly great as the switches are the wide low profile ones and are white with white plates. They all but disappear in low/no light conditions on a white wall.
My assumption on how these work is that the Circuit to the LED is open when the light is on and when it is off power is put to the led compleeting the circut back to the common bypassing the switch. The power required by the LED is so low that it is not enough to energize the light. Fun factoid with these is that if you have them wired to a CFL the CFL will flicker every now and then. I think it is because enough power is passing through the LED to energize the starter to the point where it will try and start the CFL but not enough to keep the CFL on.
