Insteon Multi Way Switch - 4 way - 3 way etc

[wwat]

Transfered from here.

 

The hardest part of setting up a 4 way switch is undoubtly untangling the wiring nightmare in your home. If you have a new home then more than likely its in much better shape but if its an older home the chances are greater that someone has been playing with the wiring and its in a mess.

Take your time, turn off the power to the boxes that your working in and remember that some boxes might contain wiring from more than one circuit, so test test test (with multimeter) every time you go to do something to make sure there is no power to wiring within the box.

It took me about 4 hours to complete one 4 way switch, mainly because the wiring was in a mess and I had to pull it all out of each box and redo.

Reference the main Insteon owners manual for the device for info on how to hook up the Insteon switches once you have identified and made ready the wiring.

 

Here is the manual for the Switchlink:http://www.smarthome.com/manuals/2476d.pdf

 

Here are some links that helped me understand the basics of how a standard multi-way switch works. You need to know this and feel comfortable in your undertanding of this material before undertaking any of this work. If you're uneasy about it, then listen to yourself and dial for an electrician.

 

Nice video:

http://www.askthebuilder.com/B141_3_Way ... itch.shtml

 

Some nice colored diagrams:

http://www.homeimprovementweb.com/infor ... switch.htm

 

More easy to understand explanations:

http://www.naturalhandyman.com/iip/infe ... f3way.html

 

http://www.selfhelpandmore.com/switch-o ... switch.php

 

Once you are over the the above hurdle its definately all downhill from there, with ISY the linking is a piece of cake. I used three ver. 4 Switchlinks and everything worked great first time.

 

Here is a link to the UD wiki page explaining how to create the multi way connections within ISY.

http://www.universal-devices.com/mwiki/ ... ay_Circuit

 

Basically you create a new scene (i.e Foyer - 4 way switch) and drop all of the Switchlink devices into the scene as 'Controllers', Thats all there is to it.

 

All the best.