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3-Way Switches, Fact and Fiction
A Short History of 3-Way-Switch Wiring with a few Jibes on Household Safety.
Date(s): 2008. Photos by Aymar. 1 - 2 of 2 Total. 2170 Visits.
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variant wiring diagrams (light turned off)

'3-Way Switches', Fact and Fiction

A) The official schoolbook wiring digram of a 3 way switch circuit. A single light source can be turned on and off from two different locations. The arrangement is most common in corridors and bedrooms. The phase (current) can choose between two alternative routings. Binary take, 4 logical states. [Extension, just for the shake of pure switchboard logic, one can link up an infinite series of 3 and 4 way switches (hard wired 'chiasmus'). Just for added background color: a shunting yard display panel or anything suitably double tracked and interconnected. - One dark and one lighted room would probably make more sense than a very long corridor with an endless long row of light switches - one per ancestral portrait.)]

B) The actual wiring diagram for 3-way switches circuits as found in European pre-war houses. My sample horizon is limited but I suspect a fairly general wiring habit. (Do not believe too much in strictly local customs...

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distribution ring
Ceramic distribution ring, plaster setting, mid 30ties. The wire isolation looks reasonably intact. No heat source (ceiling lamp) in the vicinity. May still slough off if bent.

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