I have been working on wiring a Z-Wave 3 way dimmer. In my current three way configuration, I only have line, ground, and 2 travelers in the remote box.
In the primary box, I have 2 travelers, ground, load, and neutral.
It seems that in nearly every configuration (that supports LEDs and Fluorescents), both boxes need a neutral wire.
I could achieve this if I could use one of the traveler wires to get neutral to the remote box. To do this, I'd need to take power from another hot wire in the same box as my dimmer.
The dimmer is in a 2 gang box with the switch for my outdoor lights. Both the outdoor lights and the indoor light (that's on the dimmer) are on the same breaker.
My concern was that if I took too much power on the hot wire for the outdoor lights that it could be a fire hazard; however, it seems like if they're on the same breaker, that both of those loads are going into the breaker box on one wire at some point anyhow so they must have a high enough ampacity for both loads.
Is it safe to use the hot line from another switch like this?
EDIT
Forgive me; these are my first wiring diagrams
Here are the current switch configurations
And what I think the current diagram would look like
This is what I'm proposing as an interim until I understand more about 3-way Z-wave switches
What I'm hoping to accomplish someday if I can get a better understanding of inductive coupling:
Best Answer
Yes, as long as you return power on the same neutral that's partnered with the "hot". (Why is that? Because if hot wires are protected by breakers, but neutrals are not - so if a neutral carries more than its load, that will not be detected.)
If you are converting to smart-switches, you should be able to convert the hot+2 messengers into hot, neutral, signal for the smart switches.