Leviton "Air Gap Switch" on Dimmer Controls

It's a safety feature so that when you change a bulb you don't inadvertently shock yourself. Some might say that the sudden load of the bulb could damage the bulb or the switch but I've never experienced that.

If I understand you correctly, you have Leviton dimmers and have changed many bulbs without using the switch?

I can understand the safety rational but it does seem a bit awkward since that switch is anything but easy to operate. I would guess that most would forget about it or simply ignore it altogether given its PITA factor.

Exactly, I usually just screw in a new bulb since I know better that to stick my finger in the socket. Never caused a problem with the switch or the bulb. That's been my experience using X10/Leviton/Switchlinc switches since 1984.

Thanks, Bruce. Thanks for your help on the other thread too.

While I was waiting, I called Leviton and asked the same thing. It was your answers that helped me understand theirs. The rep vacillated on the point about protecting the switch while emphasising the "safety" aspect. It didn't take a rocket scientist to realize that he"had" to state the party line about protecting the switch. It just irks me that features like this are added because of our litigative society that believes that caution and common sense are someone elses responsibility.

It's the world we live in.

While it seem to some that such stuff is totally not useful, we have to keep in mind that some user of such device could in fact have difficulty understanding the risk they take while changing a light bulb...

Just think that a driver of a Winnebago did hurt himself and won in court after placing his RV in autopilot (cruise control) and started making his next meal in the back of the RV...

Like someone here like to say, it's not rocket science, but it's still more then crushing a skull with a club...

"BruceR" a écrit dans le message de groupe de discussion : CI-dnddvrLtcf_bVnZ2dnUVZ snipped-for-privacy@comcast.com...

Well, the Winnebago story is nothing more than a false urban legend

but there are plenty of real examples that demonstrate the need for tort reform. The REAL reason for the airgap switch is to obtain a UL listing.

I think that the Winnebago/cruise control incident is an urban legend that has been around in various forms for decades.

Doug

I would say there's probably more to the addition of the cutoff switch than that. If a bulb is going to fail dramatically, it's likely to do so the first time it's turned on. The normal expectation of someone changing a bulb is that if it's off, it will stay off.

With X-10's current sensing feature, installing a new bulb without the safety slide switch means that your hands and face are probably going to be very close to the bulb when it lights up for the first time. That increases the chances that any serious failure (like a bad vacuum seal) will cause personal injury. It's probably always a good idea to fire a new light bulb remotely. I'd venture that even the startle reaction from a flare type burnout could knock someone off a ladder.

Another reason for the slide cutoff is so that if you're going away for a while and have torchiere lamps or other devices connected to the wall switch that you don't want coming on for any reason you can manually prevent them from activating via powerline commands, phantom or real, until you return.

IIRC, those slide switches appeared when X-10 changed from the flip paddle to the push-button design and were necessary to retain all the functionality of the previous paddle version. Those older switches could be set in the OFF position where they would not respond to X-10 commands. The downside, of course, was that if they were remotely turned off by X-10 powerline commands when in the ON position, they had to be double flipped to get the light to come on.

I also imagine, as was stated before, that positive manual shut-off was probably a condition of UL approval.

-- Bobby G.

Never caused a problem with the switch or