Please help me fix this wire explosion

[fasttimes]

When I first got insteon switches, I hired an electrician to install them. I had a couple of switches stop responding, so I kill the breaker, unscrew all the switches to be greeted with a rats nest.  I can't believe what this guy did.  Just as a "for instance" it seems he didn't have different size connector caps, so he screwed three wires together (one of them a smaller gauge) and then led that to another pair, when he could have used a larger connector and did them all together.  In any case, when the switches were removed from the box I was greeted with a tension explosion of wires and caps flying everywhere.  Now I don't know what goes where.

 

So this is a 4-gang box, with the left two switches being a 2476D and 2476S that control a ceiling fan light and switch respectively.  The right two switches control 2 different overhead lights -- and these were originally each part of a 3-way setup.  Those other two switches (not shown) don't have the red wire connected and they run purely in "slave" mode.

 

So with the wife at the breaker with phone in hand, I kept experimenting to see if I could figure this out, but I'm stuck.  But I did make a few discoveries and perhaps you can help me out.

 

Connecting the following pairs yields the following result:

 

POWER to Fan the fan turns on

POWER to Fan Light turns the fan light on

Power to Light 1 turns Light 1 on

Power to Light 2 turns Light 2 on

 

As you can see wires A,B,C,D,E I don't know what they do.  D and E survived the "explosion" and it looked they the were connected by a nut.  I connected them as the picture indicates.

 

 

So I have 4 switches, with Red,Black,White wires and I need to figure out where they go.  I'm fairly certain B and C are travelers and probably need to be capped off.  But what about the rest?  What goes where?

 

 

Fan Light R    --->   

Fan Light B    --->   

Fan Light W    --->   

 

Fan Switch R    --->   

Fan Switch B    --->   

Fan Switch W    --->   

 

Light 1 R    --->   

Light 1 B    --->   

Light 1 W    --->   

 

Light 2 R    --->   

Light 2 B    --->   

Light 2 W    --->   

 

and where do A,B,C,D,E get connected to?

 

[Scottmichaelj]

When I first got insteon switches, I hired an electrician to install them. I had a couple of switches stop responding, so I kill the breaker, unscrew all the switches to be greeted with a rats nest. I can't believe what this guy did. Just as a "for instance" it seems he didn't have different size connector caps, so he screwed three wires together (one of them a smaller gauge) and then led that to another pair, when he could have used a larger connector and did them all together. In any case, when the switches were removed from the box I was greeted with a tension explosion of wires and caps flying everywhere. Now I don't know what goes where.

 

So this is a 4-gang box, with the left two switches being a 2476D and 2476S that control a ceiling fan light and switch respectively. The right two switches control 2 different overhead lights -- and these were originally each part of a 3-way setup. Those other two switches (not shown) don't have the red wire connected and they run purely in "slave" mode.

 

So with the wife at the breaker with phone in hand, I kept experimenting to see if I could figure this out, but I'm stuck. But I did make a few discoveries and perhaps you can help me out.

 

Connecting the following pairs yields the following result:

 

POWER to Fan the fan turns on

POWER to Fan Light turns the fan light on

Power to Light 1 turns Light 1 on

Power to Light 2 turns Light 2 on

 

As you can see wires A,B,C,D,E I don't know what they do. D and E survived the "explosion" and it looked they the were connected by a nut. I connected them as the picture indicates.

 

 

So I have 4 switches, with Red,Black,White wires and I need to figure out where they go. I'm fairly certain B and C are travelers and probably need to be capped off. But what about the rest? What goes where?

 

 

Fan Light R --->

Fan Light B --->

Fan Light W --->

 

Fan Switch R --->

Fan Switch B --->

Fan Switch W --->

 

Light 1 R --->

Light 1 B --->

Light 1 W --->

 

Light 2 R --->

Light 2 B --->

Light 2 W --->

 

and where do A,B,C,D,E get connected to?

 

C8ADD54B-213A-46FF-89DE-33551C6691C3.JPG

Sent you a PM. Give me your number and Ill try and help you out.

[fasttimes]

Thanks! But as I said in my PM it's too dark now. I'll use my MM in the am to identify the hot wires.

[fasttimes]

Just jotting this down...

 

When I touch POWER to each of the labeled devices, they turn on. At the moment it's connected to the fan so I can stay cool tonight!

 

D & E which are pigtailed via the connector is reading 120V on my MM, so I guess that's hot. Since A isn't reading 120, that probably explains why the circuit tripped when I connected it to D&E, right?

 

What are A,D,E then? I'm assuming POWER is 120, or else the fan wouldn't be running

[larryllix]

My guess us you have three way switches at the other end of all the reds. Toggling them you may find live changing wires.

 

Sent from my SGH-I257M using Tapatalk

[stusviews]

That'd be true only if the other end are standard 3-way switches. If so, then they couldn't be "slaves" as the OP indicated. But, only the OP knows for sure if they've been replaced.

[fasttimes]

That'd be true only if the other end are standard 3-way switches. If so, then they couldn't be "slaves" as the OP indicated. But, only the OP knows for sure if they've been replaced.

Definitely slaves. I had them off earlier (the other box) and the reds on the insteon switches were capped off

[stusviews]

Info only: Insteon devices connected to the load are primary switches. Those not connected to a load are referred to as secondary. Insteon allows any number of secondary switches.

[fasttimes]

Sorry bout that. I did use slave in quotes first time.

[stusviews]

The info only was to inform, not to elicit remorse. Take back the sorry

[fasttimes]

Ok, the mess has been cleaned up somewhat.  

 

 

I pulled out my meter and found the hot wires.  I touched those against the others to find the four devices.  As I said earlier, I'm pretty sure the red wires are the travelers, as they each had round ends indicative of being attached to the traveler terminal of a standard 3-way switch.  I'm not sure how to use the meter to test these and the two unlabelled black wires.  If I had to guess, I would think those are the neutral wires.

 

If those are the neutral wires, shouldn't I be able to pigtail those along with the white wires out of the insteon switches, pigtail the hot wires along with the black wires from the insteons, and then connect the reds on the insteons to their respective loads?

 

ETA:  Although, wouldn't it be easier to pigtail a hot & neutral with the 2 left most and right most switches?  There's no requirement for all of the hots to be joined and neutrals to be joined, is there?

[stusviews]

It's unlikely that the red and/or black wires are neutrals. Remove the 3-way switches (secondary) at the other end. The red wire from the Insteon switch should be capped. What else did you find? You can disregard any ground wires.

[Scottmichaelj]

It's unlikely that the red and/or black wires are neutrals. Remove the 3-way switches (secondary) at the other end. The red wire from the Insteon switch should be capped. What else did you find? You can disregard any ground wires.

 

 

Based on his first picture his neutral wires are grouped already on the left side of the switch with duck tape? lol 

 

EDIT: Just got off the phone. I think he is headed in a good direction. I told him to add one switch at a time now that he knows whats going on. I suspect one of those lines go to something else like an outlet.

[fasttimes]

I don't have the time to write a proper post mortem now, but I wanted to give a HUGE public thanks to Scott who called me and walked me through the wiring.  We had a nice discussion bouncing ideas off each other, and in the end, our consensus approach did the trick.

 

More to come...

[fasttimes]

So I took Scott's very gracious offer to call me and try and figure out what was going on in this gangbox. With the help of YouTube and my digital Multimeter I was able to identify the hot wires and the loads. During the call, I realized that one of the black wires was coming off a duct tape pigtail. Poking around, and scraping off paint the builders sprayed everywhere, we saw the pigtail was a bunch of neutral wires.

 

Armed with that information, Scott developed a plan to test each load one at a time. But I wasnt getting the results I expected. It turns out that the insteon switches were bad. Replacing them (I always have a couple of new ones laying around just for this reason) and we got all of the switches working. We also identified the mystery wires and their function. They were leftover wires that were used for the original 3-way switches. I capped them off, as well as labeled them in case I have to replace more switches in the future.

 

Thanks again to Scott and everyone else who offered suggestions.

[smokegrub]

The above experience is yet another example of the generosity and expertise of those at this forum.