electricalgroundingswitch
I'm currently wiring up an occupancy sensor to a 3-way switch, I'm leaving one of the mechanical switches in place, and here is the wiring instructions.
according to the instructions I need to wire one of the poles on the second switch to ground (fig 5). I've never seen this before, is it safe to do? Do I wire that pole and the ground nut together to go to ground?
I was only able to get it to work with two companion switches. The Lutron series does not work properly with two occupancy sensors. My goal was to get the apt on top and the entry way to have the lights turn on when the tenant or person entering opens the door.
I like the lutron; works really well and turns on only when needed if its truly dark.
This is how its the four way with companions would be wired
(source: tyronnephotography.com)
See the diagram and the description for 4-way.
http://www.lutron.com/TechnicalDocumentLibrary/048435.pdf
No way from here to know which wire fed the light or fan, but you have a continuous hot feed into the box that fed the receptacle, light and fan. The third wire, maybe it fed the fan or maybe something something else farther down the line, if the latter that needs to be tied in 100 percent to the hot feed. All whites still tied together, blacks to the dimmer from the light and hot. All grounds tied together set with a screw to the metal box. Securing the ground to the box is not needed if the box is plastic.
Before I got too wordy, here is a sketch
Still have to learn to format better
The sketch is a little rough, it should get the idea across I hope
Best Answer
Follow the manufacturer's instructions for wiring the device. If the instructions say make a ground connection, then make it.
For argument's sake, that ground could very well be for nothing more than grounding the switch (so it wouldn't necessarily be a pole).
However, it is likely that this device is indeed passing some current to ground. Below is a reference from a competing manufacturer of similar products. Notice that this only becomes a concern when combined with many such (twenty!) devices, or with other devices that are prone to leaking current to ground. Also note that this is only a concern on GFCI protected circuits.