LZW31-SN switches remaining powered with air gap pulled

Switches Wiring Discussion
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1

I have a three gang box with two LZW31-SN Red dimmers, and one Red LZW30-SN switch. One of the dimmers has the occasion to periodically stop talking to Home Assistant, with it being reported as dead to Zwave JS. My thought it to pull the air gap switch for a moment, and then push it back in to power cycle the switch.

The odd thing is, pulling the air gap on the switch doesn’t actually power off the switch. The load attached to the switch, a 13 watt LED fixture, does turn off but if I press the paddle up or down, the dimmers RGB strip will still indicate that it’s dimming up or down. When pressed back in, the strip doesn’t do the tri-color power-up light show, but the fixture turns back on. The other LZW31-SN in the same gang box has the same behaviour. Pull the air gap, and the fixtures turn off (two 13W fixtures in this case) but switch is still powered, doesn’t do the light show when the air gap is pushed back in. The third member in the box, the LZW30-SN, however, does power off when its air gap is pulled and does the light show on being powered up again.

I checked the other dimmers in my house, and can’t find any others that behave in this same manner. I installed all of the switches and dimmers in my house, numbering 32 in all, so it seems strange that I’d mess up just this one location. I figure something is off with the wiring in the gang box, and see if anyone else has seen anything like this previously before I pull everything out of the gang box and look around.

2

Interested, because I have the exact same issue on a 2-way simple hallway light. I even RMA’d a switch and the new one does the exact same thing.

I haven’t checked voltages but everything seems to work ok so I kinda left it alone. Admittedly I have NO idea what is going on.

3

If yours neutral or non neutral? I tested all of mine (neutral) and the LED bar does not work when I pull the air gap. LED bar cycles colors when I press it back in. I pulled the plate off one and the date on the dimmer is 0720

4

They’re all neutral.

I’ve been sick lately, so I haven’t felt up to doing electrical work just yet.

5

Has neutral.

6

Line and load wires swapped?

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7

I’ve installed it twice (RMA’d the first one) so I doubt I missed it twice, but probably worth a third look sometime.

8

That was exactly the problem.

I pulled the two dimmers & one switch out of the box and used my Klein tester on the wires connected to the load and line terminals. On the two dimmers, the load terminal was still hot with the air gap switches pulled, and the line terminal was dead. The switch had the opposite situation, so I messed up when I wired the dimmers up originally, and got the switch right by virtue of a coin flip.

Swapped the wires and now both dimmers are air gapping properly. The fix has also corrected the odd dimming behaviour that one of the two dimmers was exhibiting.

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