Blue Switch Wiring Issue- should be easy!

Switches Wiring Discussion
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#1

I’m not sure what is happening and was hoping that someone can help.

I have had a blue switch controlling three LED coach lights outside my garage for a few months with no issues. During the house construction, I had it wired in case I wanted to add another coach light, and decided to add on the new coach light this weekend. This is when I started having issues. After wiring everything up, the switch no longer worked.

After doing a lot of troubleshooting, I found out that I had driven a screw through the wires powering the new coach light. I fixed this and wired everything back, but the switch still didn’t work. I figured that I had likely blown the switch, so put in a new Inovelli switch and it still didn’t work.

I then wired the hot to the load to check the circuit and all of the lights powered on correctly. I also tried an enbrighten smart dimmer and it also worked, somewhat. Using the enbrighten switch, when it was turned on, the lights strobed very quickly.

Doing some more troubleshooting, I found a few weird things- the Inovelli switch powered on when the load and the line were switched. When wired like this, it acted like it worked correctly, with the LED going bright when the top button was pushed and going dim when the bottom button was pushed. However, the lights remained off in both cases. When wired like this, I tried factory resetting the switch by holding in the top button and the config button for 20 seconds, until the LED turned red. Unfortunately, this didn’t change anything. When wired like this, I measure 122VAC between the load and neutral or ground, 1.97VAC between line and neutral/ground when off, and 3.00VAC between line and neutral/ground when off.

When wired correctly, I measure 122VAC between line and neutral/ground and 1.04VAC between load and neutral/ground and the LED doesn’t light up and the switch appears inoperable. I tried it without the neutral connected with the same result.

I also switched back and forth between the new and old Inovelli switches with the same response. In each instance, I’ve checked all of the connections to make sure that are secure. To make things more confusing (at least for me), the lights work fine with a dumb switch.

I’d appreciate any help. Thanks!

#2

Disconnect the conductors from the fourth light at the third light box, effectively putting it back to how you had it before it got hosed. You want everything after the third light out of the equation. See what your results are then.

And use a meter to ensure that you know which is the line and which is the load. Do not arbitrarily swap them around just to see what happens. You may have inadvertently damaged the switch in the process.

#3

Thank you for the quick response. I should have mentioned that I also tested this after taking out the fourth light, and the switch still didn’t work.

I didn’t intentionally swap the line and load wires. When I used a wire nut to connect them together, I must have accidently switched them. It was during my troubleshooting that I found this. When I have it wired correctly, the switch doesn’t appear to work and the LED bar is not lit.

#4

Remove the load from the switch. Just leave the hot and neutral connected. Does the switch power up? In other words, does the LED illuminate?

#5

It did not illuminate on either of the switches. However, I tried a new fan switch and it did illuminate. Looks like I have 2 bad switches :frowning:

#6

Yes, that’s likely the case, unfortunately. If you provide a hot and neutral only and it doesn’t power up, then that’s likely correct.

Get the replacement switch working with the original three first, with the conductors to the 4th one removed.

For the 4th one, remove the bulb from the fixture. Using a meter, make sure you don’t have any continuity between the hot and the neutral and between the hot and the ground, testing from the 3rd light end. You probably identified the issue re the screw, but it can’t hurt to double-check to ensure no other issues.

1 Like
#7

Thank you for your help!