I have a wall switch timer?

Question

The wall switch timer is a timer for lights . So it has an on button inthe middle, and 4 buttons for 10,20,30 or 60 minutes around the timer. I took out the old regular single pole switch and when i looked at the tmer, it had three wire, black blue and white. So i hooked up the black and white wires with the black and white wires in the box, and then by accident, he blue wire touched the box and created a huge spark. I need to know if this wire is ground and if not, where should it gtt connected cuz a ground wire shouldn't have power flowing through it?

Answer 1

The blue wire must be a hot switch-leg to control the lights.I think the black connects to black which is always hot,blue hooks to the other black that is feeding to the light and then the white connects to the whites..DO NOT WORK WITH BREAKER ON...TURN POWER OFF SO YOU DO NOT GET HURT....

Answer 2

The black and blue wires are the live power ones and the white wire is the earth wire. But in cases of doubt you should check up by using a resistance measuring meter. Between earth and each separate power wire there should be a very high resistence more than 50,000 ohms. between the two power lines (if you haven't already burned it out) and with the timer in the working position, the resistance should be almost zero.

Answer 3

how did you disconnect it and reconnect it without getting zapped? I am surprised your still alive. Cut the POWER at the MAIN breaker and get real help.  

black to black incoming, blue to black out going and white to white.  Now some people have a white out, but you need a pro.

Answer 4

Did the old wiring have 3 wires and a ground? If not then your timer will not work properly. From the description of your unit, I suspect the switch had only 2 wires, a hot and a switch leg.  There are other timer switches that are spring driven that will do the job.

The black is power in, the blue is power out, the white on the switch is a neutral, your old switch is probably just a black and white (switch leg and power in).

Answer 5

Call a pro before you kill yourself.  You probably burnt out the switch, maybe you got lucky and didn't.  Most often the blue side is the switched side  (goes to the light).  Black in, blue out of the switch.  Blue goes to the light.  Turn off the power this time before you try to connect it!!!!!!!  It just may save your life.

Answer 6

  just like you wire a wall on/off switch,,,,the switch itself does not have a nuetral wire connected to it. The nuetral wire  ( the white one). usually goes from the circuit breaker box straight to the light fixture. the on/off switch is put in the middle of the hot line (the black wire). So when you flip the switch you are really just connecting or disconnecting the hot wire to the light.

  Now with the timer switch its a little different because you need to put power in the switch itself to run the little timer motor,,,so you do connect a white wire to it. the black wire is still going to black. But the blue wire should go to the other side of the black wire that goes straight to the light.

This can be confusing if you've never done it before. I advise you to get some competent help so you dont injure yourself. it's just not worth it to hurt yourself.