Two pole two way

Hello,

I have a situation, where I have two lamps in bedroom - one near left side of bed and the other near right side of the bed. I have two double pole two-way switches. I need to be able to turn on/off the both lamps with one swtich and at the same time turn on/off those lamps with other switch. I found electrical schemes for 1 pole two way switches but nothing like this. Could someone provide me a schematic how should I do this?

Thank You.

 

It sounds like you need the standard 3-way configuration using two 3-way switches. A DPST (double pole single throw) switch disconnects both poles together, so it's not suitable for what you want.

 

3 way switches will work if the 2 lamps share a single source of power. How are the current lamps controlled?

 

You want four 3 way switches two switches (on opposite sides of the bed) for each light.

It does not matter whether the lights are on the same circuit since each light and its pair of switches is independent of the other light.

You need two 3-wire cables going behind the bed between the switch boxes.

 

Yes, I was mistaken by my expression "2 way switch" because Im from Europe and US uses 3 way instead of 2 way switch in vocabulary. Yeah so I sorted this out now, but the electrician left only one 3 wire cable between switches. On each side there is cable for lamps and there is seperate power cable (phase and neutral) to power up switch and connect the neutral to lamp. I tried to draw schematics to connect the two switches (two 3-way switches on one side and two - on the other) with one 3 wire cable and couldn't figure out if this is even possible. I think I need to have a minimum of 4 wires comming from one switch to other, because with 3 wires however I would connect them, they wouldnt work perfectly because there are some cases when lights doesn't turn off or does not turn on. Any suggestions? Is there a way to connect them with 3 wire cable or it is electricians fault and I need atleast 4 wires between switches on different sides?

Thank You.

 

You can't. You need two 3-conductor cables. One for each light. The electrician must have misunderstood.



You would have a second duplicate circulate for the second light if you wanted to control both lights separately from each side. The power in cable black would be pigtailed to both commons on the left hand switch. On the right a second 2-conductor cable would travel to the other light.

 

Hey ray2047, thank You for Your reply!

Yes, I understand your schematic and from the given answer I do the assumption that the electrician did a bad job, because I should have atleast 4 wires between the switches. WIth only one cable containing 3 wires I can only control one lamp from two different switches but not 2 lamps with my 2 gang 3 way switch. Here is the schematic that I made with software how the end result should look ( in attachments). I guess I will have to figure out a way to get another cable there now.

 

I will leave this to someone else to help you. I just don't understand your diagram. You are aware there is no such thing as a double pole 3-way switch. They are SPDT.

 

Yes I am aware. Im talking about two gang 3 way switches, not double pole, sorry for my expression. I add image how it looks in reality (there are 2 buttons, not 1). The schematic I drew is just a representation of such switch because it has 2 seperate circuits for 2 lamps (6 contacts in total - 2 coms, 2 L1's and 2L2's). And the ampermeters was just for testing and resistors are used instead of lamps.

 

It's hard even for us to keep the types straight.

And.... yes..... your diagram is correct.

 

It looks like your schematic was created for use in a Spice or other circuit simulation tool?

By the ​​​​​​way, if adding another 3-wire cable is a big problem you could use Z-wave wireless switches for at least one of the two light circuits. Dimming of the lights could also be done. Fibaro appears to be one of the popular Z-wave device companies in Europe.