I thought I'd try to be all helpful around the house and replace the PIR light switch in my dad's room with a simpler timer switch. After flipping the breaker, I pulled out the PIR and found that there were four wires. I was only expecting black, white, and green, but it had a red wire like a 3-way switch. Except that this switch isn't supposed to be 3-way and there isn't any other switch in the house that controls this light.
I looked up the manual for another manufacturer's PIR light switch, and for 2-way operation it says to cap off the red wire. I'm wondering if I should do just that — cap off the red wire in the wall, and just connect the other three wires as I normally would. Can anyone offer me their advice?
Best Answer
Switches normally just "make or break" the hot lead. Neutral conductors should never be connected to switches except for PIR wall switches and many wall timers. They need to have a neutral connector.
So you should have:
1) constant live hot wire (normally black in USA, but you never know without testing)
2) switched hot wire that delivers switched power to the load (I use red for that, never know...)
3) ground wire (green or bare)
4) Neutral wire (normally white...)
Carefully test, you should be able to identify.