Tuesday, December 19, 2023

The porch has light

The porch light is controlled from three different locations - the garage, the kitchen and the front hallway. In the old days, before I installed the smart switches, this was done using a combination of three-way switches.

With the advent of my smart switches, those three-way switches became a single controller switch with two signal switches. The signal switches do not pass any electricity in the circuit, they simply exist to give us humans a way to toggle a switch and send a signal the controller to turn on the light.

The controller switch was the one that died and I was able to remove that one with only a minor incident - I broke the damn "line" wire while taking it off the controller switch. This led to a considerable amount of profanity on my part but I quickly discovered there was enough wire left in the box and installed the not-smart switch.

So now the not-smart switch controls the light and the two signal switches are just hanging out, doing nothing, waiting for the arrival of the new controller.

And no, I did not electrocute myself, pinch myself with pliers, stab myself with a screwdriver or cut myself with a razor knife. All-in-all, it went pretty well and I am currently unscathed.


The Wild is in Boston to play the Bruins this evening and I will watch as much as I can.

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