I recently installed a new LED light fixture. It's a bit bright, so I'm replacing the single-pole switch with a Lutron CL Ariadni dimmer switch (the fixture is dimmable). The existing switch has two black wires going to it and no ground wire. (Power is off.)
The new dimmer switch has a ground wire. It also has one copper colored screw and two gold colored screws (one on each side). The instructions say "if you are replacing a single-pole switch, the screw on the same side as the different-colored screw is not used." So I'll be using the copper screw and the gold screw on the other side.
How should the new dimmer switch be wired in? Should I just use the two black wires that were connected to the original switch? What about the ground wire, should I remove one of the ground wires from the pigtail and connect the switch's ground wire to that? Should I just add the switch's ground wire to the ground pigtail?
Best Answer
This is actually how you want to see your switches done. Except for the ground. You should always ground the switch when able and I don't see any reason why this one couldn't have been grounded. One of the wires into the box is the power (it's the wire coming off the switch that leads to the nutted group). The un-nutted black leads to your fixture. There's a matching white (neutral) that's pigtailed as well (you don't need to mess with it).
You should do as the instructions say and use only the screws indicated. The extra screw is for a three-way. Since the dimmer has a ground wire, just add it to the existing ground (bare) pigtail.