I’ve been replacing switches and outlets in my house, because they were brown switches on white walls :rolleyes:
I’ve done all but the two mystery switches - the ones that don’t control any identifiable light source or outlet.
I have a multimeter - how can I use this to tell if current is going through the switches?
Don’t know about the multimeter, but I do know one thing: that one switch operates the light in Bucks doghouse out in the yard. Ya know, just in case Bob Rooney was getting ready to crawl into the walls.
Well, damn! I got rid of the doghouse! Mom’s neighbors took it when I was out, she didn’t say anything about rewiring.
and they say the US has made no contributions to world culture? NO MAAM!!
Zy, measuring current flow with typical multimeter is not a very good idea. A 100 watt lightbulb draws almost an amp of current. Most multimeters don’t have amp scales that high. Since the current has to flow through the meter to measure it, if you don’t have a high enough scale, your meter goes poof.
That said, measuring current through a switch is fairly simple. Just put the meter into the highest amp position, connect the meter to two terminals and turn the switch OFF. The meter is now completing the circuit and will now go poof.
But really, what do you care where it goes, just replace it. One day a lamp will come on unexpectedly and you’ll say: Oh! that’s what it does.
Or, you can come up here. I have the right type of ampmeter to do that stuff and outlet testers and such things as that.
JIm
RULE ONE: NEVER EVER ASSUME THE HOUSE WAS WIRED BY SOMEONE WHO KNEW WHAT THEY WERE DOING.
Short Course on North American electrical wiring:
There are three wires. 1 (the small slolt) on new wall outlets is 110volts alternating current. 2 (the larger slot) is the return wire for the 110volts AC. 3 (the round hole) is the ground / earth.
You want to measure between Ground and BOTH wires (see Rule One.) If you do not have a ground wire (older houses) then you have to of course measure between the two wires.
RULE TWO: IF YOU HAVE A TWO WIRE SYSTEM IMMEDIATELY FORMULATE A PLAN TO CONTRACT WITH AN ELECTRICIAN TO HAVE THE BATHROOM AND KITCHEN REWIRED WITH “GROUND FAULT” DETECTORS.
Set the MM(multimeter) to AC Volts. Set the range of the MM to the smallest setting that is larger than 120 (North America right? otherwise 220.)
The switches probably contol an ac outlet on the wall. This is so you can turn on a light as you enter the the room instead of having to walk in the dark and turn a switch on the lamp.
Somewhere on the planet there’s a person screaming at you to quit flipping that switch on and off. They’re trying to sleep, goddammit!
I couldn’t get the ohm-meter to work (and it became obvious later why) so while I was trying to remove the switch without actually touching it, I managed to turn the overhead light off. (what, you say? how did you miss that?) This switch is a three-way switch (i.e. two switches for the same light) and when Friendly the electrician installed new ceiling fan/light with a separate switch for the fan, he cheerfully ignored the second switch. So this switch will only turn the light off if it is in the middle. I think I’m going to ask the hardware people how to terminate it so I can remove the switch altogether.
The other one? Wasn’t wired to anything!
Sorry, Zyada, you will about to become the SDMB poster child for all that is wrong with this world.
Uh, one switch and two wires too much?
Neat trick.
Actually, I applaud your discretion in the face of several gazillion coulombs of 'trons.
Thank you.
My resume’ reads: Able to troubleshoot and repair digital and analog circuits to the component level with or without documentation.
Right! No wires. None dropped into the wall. Just another “Let’s spend a couple more dollars” on hardware just to confuse 'em.
(Hey Manhattan, and you thought RTA was bad!)
Okay, I have that out of my system.
Zyada, I apologize for my slights to your intelligence. I am quite sure that given the necessity that you would rise to the challenge. But I just had to express my amusement of smart people not being able to walk into a bus station and purchase a bus ticket without help.
Somehow, I don’t think so.
If you read JimB’s post, you will notice that the switch is supposed to be off. If you read my last post again, you will notice that this is a three-way switch that has been wired funny at the other switch. The result of this is that the switch I was replacing only turned the light off when the switch was halfway between the up and down position. Not exactly intuitive, is it? And without knowing this beforehand, it’s kind of hard to turn the sucker off if the normal off positions are both on.
Of course, when I found the “off position” and found out that it was wired to the living room light, I immediately turned off the appropriate breaker.
Thank you.
The point I forgot to make in my OP was that I was trying to find the appropriate breaker switch so I wouldn’t have to deal with a “gazillion coulombs of 'trons” I didn’t want to turn off every breaker switch in the house, but that was the next step if I couldn’t remove the switch safely.
What does that have to do with anything? This is household wiring, not computer circuits.
Right. When I unscrewed the switch from the wall and tossed it with the other switches, I completely missed the work I put into removing the wires from the switch, despite the fact that removing the wires has been the hardest and most time-consuming part of the task. (And don’t be an ass and say that part shouldn’t have been hard - you didn’t work with these switches, I did)
Yes there were wires in the box.
No, they weren’t attached to the second switch.
You, yourself said "NEVER EVER ASSUME THE HOUSE WAS WIRED BY SOMEONE WHO KNEW WHAT THEY WERE DOING. " (Thanks for shouting) So why are you assuming I’m an idiot and not the person who didn’t wire the switch?
I did rise to the challenge.
Maybe the problem is jerks that decide a person is an idiot when they have a few problems that the jerk doesn’t even take the time to understand.
Had one of those in my old house, too. I asked my electrician husband about it and he said that someone had obviously read the plan wrong, cut in a box where there wasn’t supposed to be one, so they put in a switch anyway to keep from having to patch the drywall. :rolleyes:
Moderator’s Notes: AcidKid, there’s no need to be so, heh, * caustic.* Please neutralize all urges of that nature here in MPSIMS, otherwise you’ll spoil the chemistry. A litmus test for these urges would having an inclination to immediately post an apology for your comments. If that condition holds true, your post is too base and should be withheld.
Now, please return to your Erlenmeyer flask, else you risk being precipitated from the solution.
You guys know how hard it is working phenolphthalein into a post? I’m not sure it can be done.