Most of what I’ve found on the forum so far deals with flicker on these dimmer switches when connected to fluorescent or LED lights. My Switches are connected to halogen bulbs (screw-in replacement types) right now, but they also exhibited the same behavior when connected to incandescent lights.
What is happening is this: I cannot turn the lights up to full brightness. This is true when manually using the slave or master switch, as well as through Vera. If I hold the switch in the “up” position, I can get temporary full brightness, but that is gone as soon as I release the switch. Also, the other switches that are in the same boxes (I have two switches in each box on either side of my kitchen, controlling the two lights in my kitchen) behave the same way. If I have both lights on at the same time, and I hold one of the switches in the “up” position, BOTH lights will go to full brightness, and then return to a dimmed state when I release it.
In addition to this, every now and then, the lights will flash quickly to full brightness, and then go back to normal. Sometimes, this happens repeatedly, and gives a random strobe light effect.
To throw another wrench in the works, there have been long periods of time where they have acted completely normal, and I’ve had no problems at all. There does not seem to be any rhyme or reason to their behavior - just periods of working fine, and then periods where they act as I described above.
My wife’s patience is starting to wear thin, and I don’t know how much longer I can hold out before I’m compelled to put normal switches back in. Has anybody experienced this before, or know what to do/what to try? I am at a loss.
I had the same problem in my very frustrating attempt to install the GE 3-way switch set.
What I noticed was that when the traveler wire was connected, the lights would go to a dim condition. I was using LED bulbs and thought that might be a factor, so I swapped out the bulbs for incandescent but still had the same symptoms. I tired reversing the locations of the primary and aux switches since I wasn’t sure quite what was going on – same symptoms though the primary could control the light while installed in either location.
A meter indicated that there was about 6V AC present on the traveler wire, but how it is getting there I can’t figure out.
For the time being I abandoned the 3-way configuration. I simply connected the power leads in the aux switch location with a wirenut and don’t have the aux switch connected, but have full control and dimming working properly with the primary switch and through my remotes.
I know I’m a noob to this forum and programming in general, but I went through two different sets of the GE 3-Way Dimmers and they are obviously different models. The first set was screw terminals, and the second had wires with no terminals. I wound up sending the first set back (and this is how I wound up with the second set with wires) and had almost identical problems with both pair. Main switch worked, but would only ramp up to about 70% or so, and with the first pair, the lights would blink kinda quick if I held the button. On the second pair the secondary switch would bring the lights up to 100% but only if I held the switch.
I don’t remember what site I found someone else experiencing the same problems… Ah, I found it
[url=http://www.amazon.com/review/R28DJZEDJAOWGP/ref=cm_cr_dp_cmt?ie=UTF8&ASIN=B0013V58K2&nodeID=228013&tag=&linkCode=#wasThisHelpful]Fix the instructions
The thing was, they posted the most unusual solution that they claimed worked. On the secondary switch, the wire that was white with a red stripe, connect it to neutral instead of hot as the documentation states. I thought this was crazy, but knowing that if the house is wired properly neutral should not have voltage. This should not hurt anything, so… why not! Apparently, this is what is required because it works 100%.
I don’t know about the first set of dimmers that I purchased with the terminals, but it kind of makes sense if the secondary switch is really just a low voltage device that receives power and signal over the traveler.
I hope this helps someone, and hopefully GE will update their documentation because it was just flat wrong.
Interesting data point about the (presumably newer) set with the screw terminals having issues. As pointed out, there are various reports here on the forum about the older set being very susceptible to interference, especially with longer cable runs between the primary and aux switches. It seemed like GE/Jasco redesigned that in the newer set.
Yep, that is a change that has worked for some, but not all, here on the forum. The documentation is not that clear, but the aux switch itself indicates the red/white wire can be connected to either neutral or line.
Thanks for keeping me straight. I did a lot of searches, but did not find that one. I just wish I would have tried the fix on the newer model to see if it worked for me.
Ned
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