What does single pole mean on a light switch?

Answer

single pole turns a light on and off from one location if you can turn the same light on and off from two or more locales that is called a 3 way switch

Answer

It means that the switch has electrical contacts that disconnect only one wire. Since all electrical circuits have at least 2 wires, a single pole switch directly affects only one of the 2 or more wires. This is fine if the switch disconnects the black ("hot") wire and the other wire is white ("neutral").

Answer

Switches are categorized by the number of throws and the number of poles. Most light switches are single pole - double throw. 1 c 2 o--o o Fig 1 - single pole - double throw switch in the "on" position. The connection that is made when the swith is off is only used when you have two switches for one light.

1 c 2 o--o o o--o o Fig 2 - Double Pole - double throw switch in the "on" position. Double pole - double throw switches are used where you want to have more than two switches controlling a light, or if you want to reverse the polarity in a DC circuit, or in some situations where the regulations require both the active and neutral to be isolated togeather (eg caravans in Australia).

U.S. Single-pole switch

In the US, the standard "single-pole" light switch is single-pole single-throw, with only 2 terminals. In the ON position it connects the two terminals, and in the OFF position it doesn't.

The standard US "3-way" light switch (used for switching a light from two different switches) is single-pole double-throw. It has 3 terminals (hence the term "3-way"), and it connects one of those terminals to either of the other two, depending on the switch position. There's no OFF position, so the switch has only two positions.

First answer by ID0000000000. Last edit by Ana15. Contributor trust: 91 [recommend contributor]. Question popularity: 148 [recommend question]