ECN Forum Forums General Topics of the Trade General Discussion Area oddball backfeed?

Did the service and various circuits(including base. lights)for a modular home.In the box at the top of the stairs were the power, switch loop to small fluoresent above door and a 3-wire.The hot was nutted to black of 3-wire and the white of 3-wire was painted red.I had run the 3-wire(it dropped to base.)to box w/ 3-way and switch loop out to keyless.There was alot of traffic on stairs(that's ok guy's I've got all day) and lot's of distractions, and after trying various combinations on 3-way I installed (below,one at top was factory wired)only the Fluor. would work with both switches.(not my keyless)I lost patience
and pulled loop to keyless to upper box and did down and back method to make them all work.So my question is what was I doing wrong and how to make their configuration work without changing it?Hope I'm getting this across ok.

From what I can tell you tried to have a switch leg at both 3 ways and the feed at 1 3way. If you only have 1 piece of 3 wire between switches, you have to have both switch legs at the same switch or wired light to light.

[This message has been edited by Electric Eagle (edited 11-19-2003).]