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How can I make a switch activate two circuits, when both are normally switched independently?

Home Improvement Asked on April 5, 2021

In my garage I have two lighting circuits with two separate switches in the same junction box.

Total, on both switched circuits, I have 16 recessed lights, each is a 15w LED. One switch is an occupancy sensor and turns on 6 of them. The other switch turns on the remaining 10.

The idea is that sufficient lighting turns on automatically when I enter the garage. But if I’m working on some project I want more lights so I turn on the second switch for full lighting.

You can imagine if I’m working under a car or something that the occupancy light will turn off (and I flail around to activate it again). What I want is for the second switch to turn on all the lights, even if the occupancy isn’t triggered.

How can I wire this?

I have one line to the junction box. The box has two switches and two load wires. One load with 6 cans, the other with 10 cans.

2 Answers

The easiest way is to replace the manual switch with a double-pole switch, such as this example. This allows you to switch two independent circuits with the same switch. Connect the original switch connections to one pole of the switch. connect the other switch pole in parallel with the motion detector (extend the wires connecting to hot and switched-hot at the motion detector to connect to the other switch pole). If the motion detector has built-in wires, you can add the new wires to the existing wirenuts. If the MD has screw terminals, it would be best to add pigtails (short wires) from the MD to new wirenuts and then to the existing and new wires.

If you are unsure which terminals are which on the double-pole switch, try connecting just in place of the old switch. Once you have that working ysing two terminals of the switch, use the other two terminals to for the MD connection.

Answered by DoxyLover on April 5, 2021

Frame challenge. What you want is 1 switch to activate all the light (yet, the motion sensor only controls some). That's making people chase expensive obscura, and proposing marginally-Code solutions. What is easy is 2 switches to activate all the lights.

Blow out the motion sensor box to a 2-gang box. One gang gets the motion sensor. The next gang over gets a plain switch.

It's already true that the motion sensor gets always-hot. Extend/pigtail that so the plain switch also gets it.

Ditto ditto ditto, switched-hot.

Now, the switch at the motion sensor will override the motion sensor.

Note that if the motion sensor does not have a neutral, this will make the motion sensor lose power. That may wipe out its memory of normal day/night light levels in this location. So you might see some "motion sensor turning on lights in daylight" behavior for a day or two after overriding it. If you don't like that, get a motion sensor with a neutral.

Answered by Harper - Reinstate Monica on April 5, 2021

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