Don't know what a pass-through and intermediate switch are? You need to read this!

  • Dec 14, 2020
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Controlling the lighting point from two, and sometimes from three or more places, gives the owners the opportunity to make fewer unnecessary movements, respectively, simplifies life. For this purpose, pass-through and intermediate (change-over) switches are specially designed. How they work, and some of the installation features - further in the article.

What are pass-through and intermediate switches?

A small simulation of the situation: the owner of the apartment opens the door and enters the hallway, where he turns on the light, takes off his clothes, walks along a long corridor and there, at its very end, turns off the light with the second switch. These 2 devices are called pass-through switches.

Figure 1: One-key pass-through switch is no different from a standard device
Figure 1: One-key pass-through switch is no different from a standard device

The advantages of such electrical products are as follows:

  • Possibility to control one or two lighting points from two opposite ends of the room.
  • Low cost of devices.
  • Relatively simple installation requiring only two additional conductors.
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When two switches are not enough and it is necessary to make a circuit with three, or maybe four devices, then between through devices, you can insert an additional element - an intermediate element or, as it is also called, a cross-over switch. The installation of such a device is somewhat different, but in general, nothing complicated.

Wiring diagram for pass-through and change-over switches

2 pass-through devices are installed in their regular places and it is necessary to bring wires to them.

The installation sequence is as follows:

  1. A phase wire is supplied to the first product, connected to a single socket on the case.
  2. 2 sockets of one device, by means of conductors, are connected to two sockets of the second. It is difficult to confuse them, since the connectors are located on one side of the products.
  3. The last socket of the second switch remains. The wire from it should go directly to the light source - to the lamp.
  4. A separate wire - zero, should be routed from the junction box or switchboard to the luminaire.
  5. Functionality check. If everything is done correctly, the first switch will turn on the lamp, and the second will turn it off. Or vice versa.
Figure 2: Simple wiring diagram for feed-through switches

The peculiarity of the toggle device is that it is mounted between pass-through switches. 2 wires of one pass-through product are connected to two sockets on one side of the toggle switch, and 2 wires of the second pass-through - with the remaining two connectors of the toggle switch.

Figure 3: Wiring diagram for feed-through and change-over switches in a junction box

Several features

For less waste of wires and greater aesthetics of the entire circuit, installation of checkpoints and cross-over switches are best done with a loop, and not run wires from all devices in junction box. There are a lot of advantages of this installation: saving wires, no junction box that violates harmony after finishing work, and most importantly - fewer connections, which means greater reliability of the entire scheme. And for the entire installation, only single-core and two-core conductors are required.