I have an old house and only has 2 black wires I bought a dimmer switch and it has 2 black wires and a green wire. I connected the 2 black wires together and taped off the green wire which is the ground wire. The light turns on but wont dim. Any suggestions why this is not working? Also is it ok to tape off the green wire?

Cookrobert- you have to determine wich wire is the common wire in the box (house). Look in the box and see wich two wires ore in the same sleave. (These will be your travelers, (more than likely a black and a red) the wire that is in its own sleave (black)with a white tied to other whites is the common. Now the dimmer will tell you wich wire is commom. Tie the tow commons together. The green wire is ground if your house does not have ground , cap it and forget the green, if your house does have a ground (bare copper wire) then connect the green to the bare wires is the house box. Now your to travelers on the house side will tie to the two travelers on the dimmer side. Once you have found the traveller's on the house side and dimmer travelers they can be flip flopped. It dosnt matter. Just as long as they are the traveller's it will work. It sounds complicated but I'm sure you got this. I'm a 30 year electrician. (master).. I'll be looking for your update my friend. Good luck

with a three way switch like this, you will have two traveller wires and a common wire. Look in the instructions for the switch or on the back of the device itself to see if there is a wire labeled "common" or "com". This common wire from the old switch hooks up to the common wire on the new switch. I did a bit of searching on the leviton 6602, but couldn't find anything specifically about the three way version (I would venture to guess, however, that the red wire on the old switch is the common). The common on one of the three way switches will always be a constant hot (or power) wire...the common on the other three way switch will be the "switch leg" or the wire that connects directly to the light. The two travellers go to the other two wires. Check the pamplet that came with the lutron device, it should show which wire is common and which are travellers.

You cannot wire dimmers in series and expect circuit to operate.
Problem is not 100% clear. Add a comment and include more information.

1) You have 12 dimmers.
Each dimmer has 2 black wires and a green ground wire.
The 2 black wires tell electrician that the dimmer wires are reversible.
One black dimmer wire connects to Hot from breaker, and the other black wire connects to wire going to Load (halogen lights).
If power passes through each dimmer going to next dimmer, the circuit will not work.

2) Unknown what you are replacing. Are you replacing 12 switches with 12 dimmers? Or maybe replacing 1 switch with 12 dimmers.
Number and type of devices being replaced is not known. And wires to each of these dimmers is not known.

3) You have a single 14-2 wire going to all 14 dimmers? Or does each dimmer have a different 14-2 wire?

4) You want to wire dimmers in series? So you want power to flow through one dimmer and control next dimmer?
You cannot wire dimmers in this manner and expect circuit to operate.
You can wire ordinary switches in series, but not dimmers.

5) Typically dimmers and switches are wired in parallel.
The Hot wire connects to one wire on each dimmer.
Since your dimmer has 2 black wires, the hot connects to either black wire on dimmer.
Then a jumper wire is added to connection, and the jumper wire carries power to next dimmer, and so on.
In this manner, each dimmer receives 120V potential. And then wire going to load connects to other black wire on each dimmer.

Hi,

If the directions didn't give you specific connections, look at the color of the stranded wire inside the insulation. If one is gold and one silver, the gold goes to the black incoming, the silver to the white incoming, and the green is ALWAYS ground.
If both of your stranded wires from the dimmer switch are silver, either can be connected to the black and white. Green is always ground.

I hope this helps. If it does, I'd appreciate your vote. Thanks for visiting fixya.com

Handie andie

You bought a three-way switch, but that's OK you can use it. Connect green to green (that's the ground). Connect black to black (that's either your incoming or outgoing hot wire). Connect white to one of the reds (that's either your incoming or outgoing hot wire.) The other red wire will not be used BUT you must put a wire nut (and/or tape) on it to insulate the bare end, because if the black wire in the box is your incoming hot wire, then this extra wire on the switch will be hot when the switch is OFF.

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.

Ok the RED is Phase and the Black is Neutral... Green is Earth. you have an IN, Red wire, and an OUT Red wire, the rest just go color to color. So in the socket, one Red wire goes to one Red wire from the dimmer, the other Red wire in the socket, goes to the other Red from the dimmer, then Black to Black, and Green to Green. Be careful do NOT work on it live.

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.

Black wires are the hot side the power line, white is the neutral, and green is ground. On your dimmer, the black wire is for the AC input and the red wire is the output to the lamp you want to control.

If you are replacing an old switch with the dimmer, the two black wires will be connected to the screw terminals on the switch. One of those black wires is the AC feed to the switch, the other black is the one that goes to the light fixture. You'll need to determine which is which so you can hook the dimmer up correctly.

For a few dollars you can pick up a tester that lights and chirps when it's near a hot wire. Turn off power to the light circuit at your circuit breaker or fuse panel. Remove the old switch and disconnect the wires. Make sure the bare ends are not touching anything and turn the power back on. Hold the tester near each of the black wires. One of them will cause the tester to light up and the other one will not. The unpowered wire is the one going to the light fixture. This one connects to the red wire on the new dimmer. The hot wire is the feed that connects to the dimmer black wire. The green wire on the dimmer connects to the other green wires already in the box. Turn the power off again and make your connections using UL approved twist-on connectors (wire nuts), which probably came with the dimmer. Fit the wires and dimmer back into the switch box, secure it with the mounting screws, replace the cover plate and turn the power back on.

Voila! You'll have a working dimmer. A Google search for "installing dimmers" will turn up several links to sites with good pictures.

one black from the dimmer to black. the other black from the dimmer connected to red. the green connected to the bare wire.