Hi all - I'm hoping someone can help with a wiring problem I have. I did a dumb thing. I probably was a little cocky (thought I was pretty familiar with wiring) and a little impatient (didn't label wires when I took an old fixture off). I removed a ceiling fan (wife wanted a newer one) and when I did, I just quickly undid the wire nuts (that thing was heavy!) and set about installing the new one.
Well, I was confronted with a situation I have been unable to figure out. The fan is controlled by two three way switches (they're on opposite walls in the room), and apparently only the light was controlled by the switches (fan portion operated by pull chains). The ceiling box has two cables leading into it: a three conductor (white, black, red, and ground) and a two conductor (black, white and ground). I do know that the neutrals of this setup are connected together. I get a constant 120V out of the black of the three wire cable, and depending on the switch positions, I can get 120V *between* the two black wires. Strangely enough, I get about 30V between the red and the neutrals with a DVM, a situation I'm just not familiar with. I do have a toggle dimmer as one of the switches, don't know if this could be responsible for that or not. In one of the boxes, the three way dimmer is just connected to the cable and disappears into the wall. The other box is more complicated because it is shared with three other switches. Haven't been able to trace that one out yet because I'd have to de-energize a large portion of the house, but it is entirely possible that this is where the circuit's power is tied in.
Can anyone help me figure this out and get this back together? Thanks in advance for any help you can offer.
Dave