3 way/Exterior Motion Lights. Manual On(motion bypass)/Auto On(motion sensor)

L

LMACKEY

Member
Location
Santa Rosa, CA
So I have a bit of a head scratcher. I have a house that has exterior porch and walkway lighting that has 4 exterior standard motion sensors run in series at various locations around the house controlling them. They are controlled by 3 way switches with a 4 way switch in the middle. The 3 way switch at the front door has labels on it that says Auto(switch down) and Manual(switch up). The home owner decided to change out the switches himself and now they are not functioning correctly and I am having to determine what he did with the wiring.

The logic is that the Auto function is so that the lights work solely off the motion sensors. The manual function is so the lights work by bypassing the motion sensors. I'm a bit embarrassed to admit it after 20 years of electrical under my belt, but I'm spinning my wheels a bit on this with determining how to wire the sensor so that it is bypassed in manual mode with a 3 way switch.

Currently With the common of the 3 way taking the SL to the sensor, and the sensor SL out to the lights, when switched to Auto it works fine as one would expect for normal operation of 3 way lighting. When switched up it turns all lighting off as expected with normal operation of 3 way lighting and all 3 ways and 4 ways switch as expected. However if the up position of the 3 way switch is intended to be Manual ON (sensor bypass) then I would expect that the sensor SL would need to land on a hot terminal of the 3 way which based on how 3 ways work would be a traveler in that position which doesn't seem right and I think would cause issues with the functionality of the 3 way switching if switched from other locations.

Anybody run into this? Any insight on the correct way to wire this would be helpful.

Much appreciated...
 
Are the motion sensors part of the fixtures? Or separately at different locations? (By the way, they would be wired in parallel, not series, or all motions would have to be tripped for the lights to work.)
 
I drew out a wire diagram as I like to have the visual, but would it make sense that the first 3 way would have power on the common, and travelers to the 4 way in between and replace the end 3 way with a 4 way switch instead of a 3 way?

After some thinking, and drawing out the wire diagram, I should be able to put a DPDT (4way) switch at the end instead of a 3 way and that would allow the voltage on both output terminals depending on which position the switch is in, as long as I have the incoming constant hot landed on the 3 way at the other end. That way I can terminate the load side of the motion sensor/lighting to the one terminal (manual on/switch position up in this case), essentially bypassing the sensor and sending power directly to the fixtures. And the line side of the motion sensor on the other output terminal (auto on/switch position down in this case) sending power to the sensor to control lighting.
 

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The first three way (hand/auto) would have the common going to the lights. One traveler would be from the motion sensor output, the other traveler would go to the common of the second three way, and if you only have three switches, the third switch would be a three way also, not a four way. Those two would be wired as standard three ways, with the same circuit powering the motion sensor. There could be a second switch in the same box as the Hand/Auto switch for hand operation at that location, so then you would have a four way in the middle, with a total of three, three way switches, and one four way.
 
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