kegacide Posted March 28, 2015 Share Posted March 28, 2015 I tried searching, but couldn't find what I was looking for. I have an older house, no neutral in most switches, so I've bought multiple 2-wire switchlincs. I know the 2-wire takes some juice from the circuit to power itself, but does it also affect the brightness of the light? This is a Halogen 150w bulb in a ceiling fan fixture. I have a fanlinc but wanted the light wired directly to a switch on the wall through a 2-wire switchlinc. Problem is once I hook up that 2-wire switchlinc the light is not as bright as when it is through a manual switch or hard wired, this normal? I tested it with 2 different 2-wire switchlincs and same thing. Also what would happen if I just wired a 2-wire switchlinc to a hot and a neutral as opposed to a hot/load? I ask because my other option is to use the fanlinc to control the light on the fan, then just have the switchlinc be the controller for the light portion of the fanlinc. But I would have to power the switchlinc 2 wire, can I do that by just running hot/neutral through the switch or do I have to get a standard 3 wire switchlinc to work in that way? Thanks in advance folks. Link to comment
stusviews Posted March 28, 2015 Share Posted March 28, 2015 First and foremost: connecting line and neutral to the 2-Wire SwitchLinc will destroy the device. No, the dimmer should be able to light the bulb to full brightness. Hold the top of the paddle. Does the light get any brighter? A solution is to rewire the switch box so that white is neutral (it's line now) and black is line (that's currently the load wire) and us a standard SwitchLinc or, preferable, a Keypad with the load (red) wire capped. Link to comment
kegacide Posted March 28, 2015 Author Share Posted March 28, 2015 First and foremost: connecting line and neutral to the 2-Wire SwitchLinc will destroy the device. No, the dimmer should be able to light the bulb to full brightness. Hold the top of the paddle. Does the light get any brighter? A solution is to rewire the switch box so that white is neutral (it's line now) and black is line (that's currently the load wire) and us a standard SwitchLinc or, preferable, a Keypad with the load (red) wire capped. No holding down the switch doesn't help. The switch thinks its at full brightness, and so does my ISY. I checked with a 2nd switchlinc 2 wire real quick without actually checking the brightness at the ISY or with the LEDs, maybe 1 of them is acting up and the other will allow it to get to full brightness. I will test again. Thanks for saving me a switch as I was about to go hot/neutral to my 2-wire, glad I asked first. Link to comment
lilyoyo1 Posted March 28, 2015 Share Posted March 28, 2015 That switch was designed to be used with an incandescent. Because it is stealing power from the bulb to power itself, that could be causing the bulb to be dimmer. Try it on an incandescent. That will tell you if its a switch problem or not. Insteon is pretty adamant about using incandescent with that switch for a reason. Link to comment
stusviews Posted March 28, 2015 Share Posted March 28, 2015 A halogen bulb is an incandescent bulb with a bit of gas added. Due to the chemical nature of the gas, the tungsten filament lasts longer and glows brighter. Tungsten, BTW, is the material that the filament of incandescent bulbs are made of. Link to comment
lilyoyo1 Posted March 31, 2015 Share Posted March 31, 2015 That is true. However with the switch stealing power from it, I'm wondering if its taking enough of the power to keep it from going full on. Halogens produce enough to turn on but even as you dim, it cuts off sooner with that particular switch than an incandescent. It should work but since he's having the same issue with multiple switches, its a good test to see if its duplicated with incandescent Link to comment
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