Oh yeah baby!!!
Need wiring help for weird 3-Way. Neutral in one box, but jury rigged 2nd box wired through the bulb
My electrician thinks that very well could be it, but won’t know until he looks into the light fixture. As he wants to only make one more trip out here could you please post a link to how that would be wired up with an Inovelli Red dimmer and an Aux switch. That way, if that is the situation he can do it right then.
Is the white wire with the black dot, which is connect to the black wire that does not go to the common screw, a traveler wire?
BTW, since it seems the Aux switch is just sending whatever is pushed to the Inovelli, can it do multi-taps and/or dimming?
No, the Inovelli cannot understand multi-taps coming from the AUX switch. Hopefully down the road, it will be able to do so.
With the original switches back in place I investigated what is hot and what is not in the 2 boxes with the 4 combinations of switch 1 and 2 being up or down. With the below results does that help you tell me how to wire up the Aux switch, which goes in the switch one box as there is no neutral in that box, and the Inovelli Red dimer which goes into the switch two box as there is a neutral wire there? At the bottom I came up with a possible solution, but I don’t know if it will work.
Each switch has a traveler to the left, T1, a Common on the right top, and a Traveler on the lower right, T2.
One big P.S. if it helps: I originally bought 2 Inovelli Red dimmers as I didn’t know I didn’t have a neutral in switch 1.
| Switch 1 | Switch 2 | Light On/Off | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Up | Up | Off | |
| T1 | Hot | Not | |
| Common | Not | Hot | |
| T2 | Not | Hot | |
| Switch 1 | Switch 2 | Light On/Off | |
| Down | Up | On | |
| T1 | Hot | Not | |
| Common | Hot | Hot | |
| T2 | Not | Hot | |
| Switch 1 | Switch 2 | Light On/Off | |
| Up | Down | On | |
| T1 | Not | Hot | |
| Common | Hot | Hot | |
| T2 | Hot | Not | |
| Switch 1 | Switch 2 | Light On/Off | |
| Down | Down | Off | |
| T1 | Not | Hot | |
| Common | Not | Hot | |
| T2 | Hot | Not |
| Observations: | ||
|---|---|---|
| The Common on Switch 2 is always hot. | ||
| When Switch 2 is up Switch 2 T2 and Common are hot and Switch 1 T1 is hot | ||
| When Switch 2 is down Switch 2 T1 and Common are hot and Switch 1 T2 is hot |
I made the following diagram that shows what the chart is saying. As you can see, Traveler 1 in Switch 1 is wired to Traveler 2 in Switch 2, not that it really matters.
I was wondering if the below diagram shows a possible solution. The idea is to use the two travelers in switch box 2 to send a neutral and line to switch box 1 and then use two Inovelli Red dimmers (“RD”). I was thinking I could do this as there are 2 holes for the neutral and line in each RD. Is there any reason this wouldn’t work?
You cannot direct write two Inovelli switches or dimmers together. You have to use associations. The non load switch must have a neutral. Load switch can be neutral or non neutral.
I’m only using the travelers to supply the neutral and line. I would then do an association to control them using Switch 2 as the Source (slave) and Switch 1 as the Destination (master).
Got it. I did the same. The key is to set param 12 (zwave association behavior) to 11 on the non load switch
Thanks! I hadn’t done that before. Do you know why 11, timer, 3-way and local? vs. any of the other choices? Is there someplace that describes what all the options mean and how to choose the correct one?
I’m not sure on use cases for the other options. Only when associating dimmers do I set param 12. If you don’t the switches fight back and forth over the state of the switch. IIRC option 11 is everything except back to the hub.
Thanks. I’m just trying to understand everything instead of just blindly following instructions, which is what I’m still doing. But, that seems to be working and may have kept me out of trouble. 
Can you help me understand this? I keep seeing it but want to understand WHY if associations are uni-directional and there are 2 groups for level control (3 and 4).
Edit: If 4 controls from master to slave, and 3 controls from slave to master, where is the looping happening I guess.
You should setup group 3 and 4 in both directions. Total of 4 associations.
This quote has some good details on the different association groups.
Wow, ok I’ve been giving potentially inaccurate advice for a LONG time now. WE NEED A WIKI @Eric_Inovelli!!!
Mine seems to work just fine with:
Group 2 Master (with load) to slave
Group 4 Master to slave
Group 3 Slave to Master
But it in fact does NOT follow the dimming, just sends once released and updates the slave switch. On/Off is instant.
Will have to test more it seems.
Lol working on it brotha!
I found the information in this post (expand):