The switch has two black wires, One for Hot (black) in and out. The white is neutral (white) and needs to be tied to the load (socket, light, fan... ect.) after the switch. The green is earth (ground) and needs to be attached to you electrical box (the metal backing box)
This is not my picture, i just grabbed it from google.
SOURCE: i have the Trimatron Dimmer switch to install,
one black from the dimmer to black. the other black from the dimmer connected to red. the green connected to the bare wire.
SOURCE: Dimmer Switch Installation issue
ALL you really need to worry about is the white and black wire that you hooked up before. The green ground screw is not needed. If you have a bare wire completely bare all the way, you can hook it to the green, but it is not required to work.
The other 2 screws are for the switch. It does not matter which wire goes where, as the switch just puts them together, and takes them apart.
SOURCE: Trimatron 3 way push on off dimmer switch
One wire is the common and the other two are the travelers.The trick is to find which one is which.... If you can see into the electrical box check to see if one of the red wires and the black wire are from the same cable, if they are then more than likely those two wires are the travelers; you can also look at the other switch and see which two wires are on the brass colored screws, those would also be travelers. The common is usually the wire that is on the black colored screw. Once you figure out which wire is your common, I'm thinking that it is one of your red wires, you would attach that wire to the black wire on the dimmer and the other two wires to the 2 red wires on your dimmer.
SOURCE: Have a Leviton dimmer with red, black and green
You are correct in assuming green is the ground and connects to bare copper wire. Black is always the HOT wire and should be attached to the black wire. Red wire connects to white wire.
SOURCE: I attempted to install a slide dimmer yesterday.
The white and the black wires are both hot wires, and the green wire is for earth ground only. The green wire does not belong hooked up to the white wire.
The two black field wires should be attached to one side of the dimmer switch (one of the black wires from the dimmer switch)
The white field wire should be attached to the other side of the dimmer switch (the other black wire from the dimmer switch)
The green wire from the dimmer switch should be hooked up to earth ground only (any un-insulated copper wire that is inside the switch/outlet housing) and if you can not find it attach the green wire to the inside of the light switch outlet housing and be sure that it is attached to metal.
The other hall light switch that you are talking about must be connected inline with that light switch you trying to turn into a dimmer, and it should operate again nomally once you have connected that light switch properly, and if not check for any tripped circuit breakers.
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