Wiring 4-Way Circuit. WD100+ LEDs turn on but the recessed lights do not.

[Guest]

I'm at a point where I need some help installing a WD100+ and two WA100+ switches. The results I'm seeing are that the LEDs on the WD100+ switch itself light up but the recessed lights they are connected to do not.

I'm trying to replace my existing switches within one WD100+ switch and two WA100+ switches. The current circuit controls a set of five recessed lights. I have a little experience with electrical work (i.e. changing existing switches, adding new single poles) I can easily wire single pole and 3-way switches. The 4-way is confusing to me. I'm totally lost trying to replace this 4-Way switch with Z-Wave switches!

My existing circuit looks like this:


If I'm not mistaken, the lights sit between the 3-Way switch near the patio and the 4-Way switch. Is there any way to confirm this? When I remove the hot wire from the switch near the patio, none of the other switches see any voltage.

I tried rewiring the circuit in the following way:


In the patio switch, I installed the WD100+. I pigtailed a white wire from the existing bundle of wires onto the WD100+.

At the 4-way switch location, I put a WA100+. At this location I connected the reds together and the whites together. I added a pigtail to both and connected a red and a white to the switch.

At the 3-Way switch near the garage I wired the red and white wires to the WA100+ and put a wire nut on the black and left it disconnected.

As I stated up above, the LEDs on the WD100+ light up, but the switch is not turning my recessed lights on. I was able to add the WD100+ to my SmartThings app as well.

I'm not sure if my current wiring will allow for me to use the HomeSeer switches. If that's the case I will need to return the unopened ones

Does anybody have suggestions on what I could try next? Any glaring issues with the way I tried wiring up the HomeSeer switches?

[scorp508]

I just did a similar looking 4-way circuit last week. Do the 3-wire bundles have the same colored outer sheath on them? I was lucky in that one of mine was gray and one of them was white so I could easily tell them apart at the existing 4-way switch.

Do you have a multi-meter capable of working with 120V AC? I spent a few minutes with all of my connections disconnected safely away from each other and mapping out exactly where the power comes in and which set of wires were the load. My line was fed from one of the remote boxes so I had to wire-nut two hot leads together to get the line fed to the box with the HS-WS100+ in it.

It ended up looking like the attached. Colored circles are wire nuts and I didn't bother showing the grounds. It may be a little different from yours, but the principals should be similar. Each WA switch is connected to their neutral + traveler which connect to the same terminals in the WS' box. In one of my WA boxes the black lead is capped and unused. The other WA is the source of the feed so the black lead in the 14/3 bundle is connected to the feed coming into that box. In my situation the WS' box is also where the load wires to the lights are located.

[jmaddox]

I swear by my Non Contact Voltage Tester. I can easily tell a live group of wires and if I spread the individual wires out I can even spot which is the line when I'm faced with a 3 wire situation. Keep in mind sometimes white will be the line although it's supposed to have electrical tape around in to denote this.

My suggestion would be to turn off the breaker controlling the light. Check every wire bundle in each of the 3 boxes to ensure they really are off then remove all 3 switches.

next wire the incoming black (line) directly to the black leaving the first box. turn the power on and use the non contact voltage tester to verify the line really is the line. Check the other 2 boxes and see which one is now live. The red from the first box is probably the same bundle but if there is any doubt double check it using the same method.

Now that you know where the black from Box 1 is going, wire it up again and then repeat that process in the next box till you locate the load and also have mapped out which wires are going to which boxes.

Once you know whats going where you can wire up the WD100+ make sure it controls the load properly then add in the WA100's