idunno

[wannafish]

i was called to do a small remodel job on a customers 3rd floor apartment house.it had a 1 armed bandit in the attic space with 4 120v circuits from it,fed by 1 120 volt circuit unfused directly from the meter at grade level.after installing new sub panel not in the attic and feeding from fused panel located in basement i found the 3-way switching from 1st to 3rd floor would turn on upper light and turn off lower light simultaneously and vise versa.any thoughts from anybody would be helpful.the wiring for the apartment house was initialy done by the homeowner

 

[electricalperson]

to me it sounds like the lights are wired in paralell with the travelers
changed to paralell

 

[wannafish]

i dunno

i dunno

i thought i would wait for replys but let me add this- the problem went away when i put all existing circuits on the same phase. any more thoughts?

 

[electricalperson]

sounds odd. i would take apart all junction boxes, switch boxes and light boxes and wire it right. can you take pics of the switch boxes so i can see? if i was at the job with you i would figure it out in a second.

 

[peter d]

if i was at the job with you i would figure it out in a second.

Sorry, I would have it figured out in half a second.

 

[electricalperson]

Sorry, I would have it figured out in half a second.

then whats the problem with his job

 

[LarryFine]

if i was at the job with you i would figure it out in a second.

Sorry, I would have it figured out in half a second.

Why would it take you both so long?

then whats the problem with his job

That's if we were there. :grin:

 

[wannafish]

are you guys all retarded or are you just lonely and need someone to talk to?if you cant offer reasonable or constructive comments maybe you should go find a job.

 

[peter d]

are you just lonely and need someone to talk to?

That pretty much describes me to a "T." :roll:

if you cant offer reasonable or constructive comments maybe you should go find a job.

I have one already. Now what do I do?

 

[76nemo]

are you guys all retarded or are you just lonely and need someone to talk to?if you cant offer reasonable or constructive comments maybe you should go find a job.

I thought maybe an answer/suggestion thrown your way would be appreciated, but after that remark, I wish you the best of luck bud. I was raised a little different. This isn't a forum of strangers.

 

[electricalperson]

are you guys all retarded or are you just lonely and need someone to talk to?if you cant offer reasonable or constructive comments maybe you should go find a job.

i thought my comments were reasonable or constructive but i guess you didnt see them

 

[LarryFine]

are you guys all retarded or are you just lonely and need someone to talk to?if you cant offer reasonable or constructive comments maybe you should go find a job.

I hope you are not still expecting a response after that.

If you're that thin-skinned, you're in the wrong place.

 

[wannafish]

my apologies

my apologies

Let me respond with this;to the few who offered sensible comments I certainly did not mean to offend you.Your input was appreciated and applied to the situation, but I still have a problem.Any other thoughts?
To the ones who only responded after I asked if everyone was retarded or lonely;I really dont think you had any thing to add.
To those of you who think you could fix this in 1 second or less;I have a small project for you! I would bow down on my knees and praise you for your wisdom(after writing the check of course). In the meantime maybe you should consider a career as a hot air balloon.

 

[pbeasley]

i thought i would wait for replys but let me add this- the problem went away when i put all existing circuits on the same phase. any more thoughts?

warning, stream of consciousness follows...

Dropped or loose neutral? maybe not though, because putting them on the same phase I would expect them to just stop working all together if that were the case.

Had a 2 circuit track once with a similar problem. Hooked up to dimmers, each circuit happened to be on a different phase. Couldn't figure out why this track was always dimmer than other tracks on the same circuit. Turns out the contractor did a poor termination job and the neutral was just hanging loose. because the track was a shared neutral, we actually ended up with 2 circuits for and fixtures designed for 120v in series and fed with 208. Because it was being fed from dimmers anyways, voltage readings were not an obvious indicator of a problem. One of the tests that led us in the right direction was that turning off either circuit breaker turned off both circuits of the track, but turning the dimmers all the way down did not because these units did not have air-gap circuitry.

While this is not the same scenario you are working in, there might be some similarities.

 

[don_resqcapt19]

I would expect that you will find that the three ways are not wired like they are now. There are a number ways that have been used in the past that are no longer code compliant.
Don