I recently purchased a Vera Lite and several Evolve LRM-AS Dimmer switches. I’m anxious to get everything set up. I’ve installed regular dimmers before but I’m not 100% sure on how to wire the LRM-AS switches. The dimmer has 4 wires, I attached an image of the wiring diagram. My switch box only has 3 wires going to the current light switch. One is the ground and I assume the other two are the line and load but I am not sure. I’ve attached images of the wires. The wiring diagram for the Evolve LRM-AS is confusing. It seems to indicate that the white wire and blue wire both go to the load wire but the diagram also sesm to indicate that the white wire should be connected to a neutral wire. I would appreciate any help that you guys can provide. Thanks.
I can’t really tell what wire colors you have because of the paint. Looks like two black wires, so one is probably line/hot and the other is load/light. You need a neutral (usually white in the U.S.) for this switch to work. The neutral isn’t usually wired to standard (non Z-wave) switches. In one photo, I see several wires twisted together. Are those white/neutral wires?
“The wiring diagram for the Evolve LRM-AS is confusing. It seems to indicate that the white wire and blue wire both go to the load wire”. The blue wire goes to the load/light. The white wire connects to the neutral coming back from the load and returning to the load center (breaker box). If those twisted wires are neutrals, that’s where the white wire would connect, if they’re part of your light’s circuit.
You need to determine accurately the function of each wire in order to install the switch safely.
Thanks for the response. You are right about the twisted wires. I took a look at them after you mentioned it. They are white wires so they may be neutral wires. I removed the paint from the other wires but they are all black so I need to determine which one is line and which one is load. Ill pick up a wire tester to figure out what the wires are. Thanks again
I assume that you have single-pole switch, not a 3-way circuit. If that is the case, then it should be rather easy to determine which of the two black wires is line using a circuit teste. In that case the other black wire is load.
Evolve has several names. They are also known as HomePro and as Advanced Control Technologies, Inc. (www.act-solutions.com). Evolve seems to be the brand name for ACT’s residential line of products.
The wiring diagrams for Evolve switches can be confusing. In some case such as the Evolve LFM-20 Isolated Fixture Module (ACT Model ZRF113), it is incorrect.
What the wiring diagram is telling you is that you need to provide a neutral wire to the switch and a neutral wire to the load. Since you are replacing an existing switch, you should not have to worry about running a neutral to the load because it is already in place. It also appears that you are fortunate to have a neutral wire already available for the switch. In my house, I usually had to run a new wire from the switch’s electrical box to the fixture the switch controlled so that I would have a neutral available for the switch.
The Evolve switches are not complicated to wire, but with all the extra wires they take up a great deal of space in a switch box. I often had to remove the yellow wire and trim the green wire in order to get them to fit. The yellow wire is not needed, except if you want to have the equivalent of a 3-wire circuit.
Thanks. I figured it out. I had to attach the neutral to the group of neutral wires. The neutral wires were pig tailed together with a wire connector on the end. I initially tried to attach the dimmer to one of the wires from the group of neutral wires. I twisted the neutral wire from the dimmer in with the others and added a wire connector. Now I just need to finish installing the other dimmers.