The Best 3 Way Switch Explanation Ever!

hello again I'm Terry Peterman the internet electrician and welcome to another one of my video shorts on current topics at electrical - online.com and of course right here on youtube today i am going to finally solve the 3-way switch for you now I did a video a while back using rope lighting to demonstrate the use of 3-way switches and how they work and that video is actually quite popular but it's not very good quality it's shot and standard def but it's a link is available here in the description to that because it's actually quite good and helping you visualize how a 3-way works however what I'm gonna do in this video is I'm going to show you a practical situation of a 3-way switch on my demonstration wall back here so we'll open up those switch boxes and show you how those connections are made in both the first switch the second switch and then at the light fixture I'm gonna draw it on a white board a grease board for you but best of all I'm gonna give you the animations that are right out of my basics of household wiring electrical program and that's the best possible way to understand finally solve and demystify the three-way switch it'll show you it animated version of how the current flows through that circuit Hey and as an added bonus we'll even show you the four-way switch so again a practical use I'm gonna tell you about it I'm gonna draw it on a little grease board and I'm gonna provide you the animations from the basics of household wiring so if you haven't bought that program yet you can get it just a glimpse of how that works and how the animations work in that program coming right up so here it is in a practical situation all right we have our Neutral supply so that's our Neutral it's coming into this circuit going out to another part of the circuit nonetheless there's a marette there's a pigtail on this one that's our supply neutral this is our supply hot ok pulling out this 3-way switch we're even going to show you two different types of 3-way switch a decorator style Decorah and the standard style or tog style so what's important here though is that this hot splice that is going to provide the common for our three-way switch Network and this switch so if you can see here black identified screw is the common one of the travelers is on top here in this case it's red the other traveler is black on this side and you can just double check to make sure that common is tied in to the hot splice here okay our grounds are tied off as normal they are connected to the straps bonding Grunk grounding straps in the in the outlet box there's tails provided for switches if the switch has a termination connection for it but like I say the important thing to remember the common screw the power in going to the black common on this 3-way switch red and black are the travelers neutrals spliced together now there's a three wire cable leaving this box that three wire is gonna show up in the other switch box let me show you here's the other end of that three wire cable three wire plus ground another three-way switch same principle different style this is a toggle switch looking on this side you see we've got the black common we've got a black traveler on this side flipping it over we have a lonely traveler the red wire on the other side checking to make sure the black common is connected to this two wire cable which goes up to the light the travelers came in on the three wire from the other switch location the red and the black from the three wire table or are the travelers the neutrals are spliced through to the light let's go to the light here's the light outlet box neutral that's been spliced all the way through the first box through the first box where the first 3-way is spliced through the second bar for the second three-way is and it arrives here at the light to provide you a neutral for your light fixture here's the black wire that's come through the whole three-way network and it's ready to tie on to the light fixture and a ground for the light fixture if one is required now again I'm gonna draw this out on a board for you so you can understand it and we're gonna add in all our animations from the basics of household wiring then you can actually see an animated look at how the current flows through this circuit now let's see how a three-way switch works when in action electrical current travels from the power source and arrives at the common screw on the first terminal the current will either try to pass to the traveler screw on the left or the traveler screw on the right in our example since the switch is in the down position the current passes to the traveler screw on the left and will then try to travel along the black traveler wire until it reaches the second switch if the second switch is in the up position the current will stop having nowhere to go in this case the light will be off if the switch is in the down position the arriving current will pass through to the common terminal screw and continue out to illuminate the light the same will work at the electrical current arriving to switch number ones common screw finds that the switch is in the up position the current will attempt to pass to the right traveler terminal screw and will try to continue along the red traveler wire when it reaches the second terminal it will stop if the switch is in the down position if the switch is in the up position the current will pass through to the common terminal and then out to illuminate the light ok I've showed you the circuit in practicality where it's actually wired up you've seen the animations now I'm going to show you my drawing of how this all works so again here let's call this your white neutral coming in spliced in the first box your white neutral spliced in the second box off it goes to the late fixture outlet okay power comes in this is your hot from the circuit feed wherever that might be to the common black terminal of the first three-way switch then you've got a three wire cable that goes over here white which already is used as a neutral black and a red so that's just for simplicity of the drawing let's draw these going up and over so here common screw in on the hot then a traveler over to that traveler it could be the red maybe we'll use the black for this one it does not matter which two are used for travelers black or red so this one's black now okay and then a switch works like this a 3-way it's either in this position in one if the toggle is up or you push the toggle down it connects here so let's say it's in this position for now and let's put this one in this position and out of the black comm and screw how and you hook up your light here so let's follow this through power coming in common terminal this switches in this position it continues on this switches in that position the light doesn't work switch this switch the light works you see you got a path for your current all the way through again change a position of this one now we have no feed over here and the light is off you could turn this one back to this position now you do have a path for your current to flow to the light and there you have it my rudimentary drawing I've got the animations for you if you wanted to add a four-way switch in the animation is gonna add that in it's quite simple actually that four-way switch would just go in the middle of this circuit so you'd bring a three-wire out of this first switch box into another one and then another three wire out to the far one and in here the four-way switch just works like this four terminals that switch in when it's in one position it goes like this and in the other position it goes like this so again if this one's feeding power on to the three-way it's flowing here this switches in this position good to go light is on you can see we're turning any one of these switches into a different position is going to break the circuit flip this one now you're going like this power is coming in goes up here nowhere to go the lights off now let's see how this four-way switch setup will function when electricity is flowing through the circuit incoming current will arrive first at the first three-way switches common terminal with the switch in the down position the current will pass through to the left traveler terminal and travel along the black traveler wire until it reaches our four-way switch here with the switch in the down position the current will pass down through the switch and continue along this black traveler wire until it reaches the second three-way switch once the current arrives here it will pass through to the three-way switches common screw if the switch is in the down position in this case the current has an unobstructed path through the circuit to reach and illuminate the light let's back out so we can see this path clearly the benefit of a four-way switch setup is that at any switch along this path you will be able to turn off or turn on the light notice how the path of the current is affected as we turn off and turn on the flow of current a complete circuit is broken or created every time there is a flip of the switch so thanks for watching and don't forget to Like and subscribe to my channel here at YouTube also check out my website at electrical dash online.com there's much more information there as well as our store where you can purchase the basics of household wiring this is available in a DVD or as an instant download and it's simply the best electrical educational program there is on the market we also have my course available now at udemy.com that's ude my dot-com it's called learn the basics of household wiring it's a fully comprehensive course that'll help you understand your home's electrical system and make you a more safe and competent Weeknd wiring warrior thanks again I'm teri Peterman the internet electrician

Channel: Terry Peterman

Views: 4,173,311

Keywords: 3-way switch, 3 way switch, three way switch, three-way switch, 4-way switch, 4 way switch, four-way switch, four way switch, switch, switches, cables, circuit, light fixtures, switch outlet, light outlet, electrical outlet

Id: xBEi_fYDMJw

Length: 11min 48sec (708 seconds)

Published: Mon Jun 25 2018