Slowly starting, big plans... Advice please?

[tiwing]

Hi, I have no automation currently and have been dreaming of insteon for a decade since we built our house. Wanting to start small as budget allows and over the years go to a full home with isy and elk m1 and some zwave sensors thrown in where it makes sense.

But to start... FIrst I want to put dimmers on a 3 way circuit in the tv room. Can the dimmers be installed and talk to each other without an isy or hub? So all I need to buy is 2 dimmers and replace both switches in the circuit and voila, dimming lights? Can a 6 button be used as one of the dimmers instead, and just not make use of the 4 scene buttons for now?

Soon after that will follow a 2413U and a raspberry pi. And a few more this and that..

Thanks for your advice!

Tiwing

[BLH]

You have to check the wiring between the switches, load and power source. Both Insteon switches must have a Line and Neutral power connection. One of them will have its Load connection connected to the light. The other one you will cap off its Load connection and not use it. Travelers between the two switches can be reused for getting power to a switch that does not presently have both Line and Neutral.

No you do not have to have a HUB or ISY994i. The switches can be linked together with their Set Buttons with a manual linking procedure.
Download the switches you want to use manuals from the sales page. It should show how it is done.

What kind of a load is the light. Incandescent, CFL or LED? If LED they have to be rated to be on a dimmer.

[tiwing]

Awesome, thank you! I'll pull the switches and check for wiring like you said - my gut tells me I'll have to pull power through the traveler considering where the switches are located. I never thought to download the manuals, good idea and thank you for that. If I have to reuse the traveler, is there convention for how to tag the red wire inside the box so someone in future can figure out what's going on?

It's LED - and they are dimmable so good there.

Appreciate your detailed answer!

Cheers.

[BLH]

I have not seen anything on marking the traveler wires if being used to supply power.

[SeanM]

SteveL did a video on re-purposing travelers for Insteon. Maybe it will be useful:

[url]https://youtu.be/CPxRvdZt-QM[/url]

[d3vd]

I've done this on 3 and 4 way switches, (I don't actually remember the specifics of the 4-way its been a few years). One switch receives the power into it, the other side of the 3 way switch is connected to the load, but power normally alternates between black and traveler.

Once you identify which side is LINE (always on power) you can connect that wire to the black wire of the 14-3 cable, and put a nut on both ends of the red wire as it is not used, also the LOAD on the insteon switch will not be used either.

On the LOAD side, the black wire from the 14-3 wire is now also always hot, it can power your switch and provide the power to the load itself.

I've done this numerous times, there is even a place where I connected the hot to the now-spare traveler to power and outlet I wanted to add on the other side of the wall from a switch, but I am sure this is in violation of some code.

[Rob-NH]

For the cost of the hub, it is worth all the extra things you can do and it should make the wiring easier. IMO