Electrical help again please

I asked this question a few months back and thought I understood the answer.

Let's try again.

I have a single pole switch with a pilot light.

The switch has two brass contacts on one side and 1 brass and one silver contact on the other.

From the power source I have black, white, bare copper.


All connections are in a junction box. From the switch I have 1 white, 2 blacks, 1 copper

All bares are twisted together in the j-box

All whites connected and one hot black to the switch. The other two blacks are connected to the cable going to the outlet in another building.


The problem is that the pilot light is on at all times regardless of the position of the switch.

Help !!

Got a pic of how the switch is wired? I think you’ve got to break away the tab between the two brass screws that are on the same side. Might not though, depending on the brand of switch. Do you know what brand it is?

Should be like this depending on the brand

It's a Pass & Seymour.

I wondered about that tab because there seems to always be continuity between those two terminals and I suspect that tab is the problem

Do both those screws have wires on them going to the load box?

yes

Don't break the tab. That's the electrical connection to one side of the pilot light. Can you sketch the connections?

I'll have to set up my drafting table.It will take a while

I thought that's what you had said. Look at the schematic posted above, the load is attached to the other side. I'm not a real electrician that knows the switches by brand but, if you take that switch out of the circuit (I'd take out of the box and work on a table) and check continuity from each screw to all other screws in both switch positions you can draw yourself a picture of how the juice flows in each position and from that determine how you want the wires connected.
The two tabbed screws are one single connection point as it is, in effect jumpering the wires connected to them.
(The USN training was ~50 years ago and I have to think things through nowadays.)

Here is the exact switch .

I think the problem is in the neutrals. I have the neutral from the source connected to the switch. and to the neutral coming from the outlet


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kqgIEVVkq2k

I think the black you are using as a feed needs to be on the side with two brass screws. Is it?

The neutrals should all be tied together and to the switch

Yep I did exactly that. It's a brand new switch and I went over it with the ohm meter before I started.

I would switch the blacks to the opposite sides. The pilot light is hooked to the brass screw on one side or the other. If you feed that screw with constant power, the light won’t go out like you want it to.

I'll give that a shot in the morning. It's the only possible combination I haven't tried !

Thanks guys !

I think this, the light is between the neutral screw and the tabbed screws and that the black/hot wire from the source needs to be on single yellow screw so that when the switch is on the voltage is applied back from the load side through the light, check the voltage of all your wires and see if one of the three is hot or if two are hot

Hot wire to yellow screw, whites jumpered together and to white screw; load coming off the tabbed yellow screw, with the tab feeding the light.

edited as I had thought this through a bit more and realized I had it wrong.

When you start switching wires, please (for the sake of all of us....) have Barb ready to video the results when you throw the power switch back on.....

Pete

What are you trying to do with the switch ? Are you Using it as a Pilot light in the dark or to show you that you left the switch on .

Just turn off the gas and the pilot light will go out. Your way over thinking this thing. LOL

Call an electrician before you burn down the house.

To show that the switch is still on

Riiiiiiiiiiiiight !! Easier said than done

You know you need to call in an electrician , when your electrical system looks like this:

Add some 3 Phase 480 in there, and you are good to go !

The Pass Seymour 692, is wired with white wire on silver screw, feed hot wire on the same side of Switch as the neutral wire, on the brass or dark screw and the switch leg to the light on the other side of the switch. The reason two screws on the same side have continuity is if you want to use it as a Constant light on in a dark area. Then you would put the line side/hot wire on the screw that share continuity which feeds the pilot light.

If you need me to walk ya through it shoot me a pm and I’ll give you my number.

Yes. This was the problem I switched the incoming hot to the opposite side and everything works as designed. Their instructions are terrible. But I was trying to make it more complex than it is

I sure appreciate all the help and MOST of the comments

What he said