Two Light Fixtures, One Switch

[newbie386]

I have two light fixtures in my flex room and there's one switch to control both.
Original switch I had is a dimmer one(black and grey switch in picture) and it was making my led bulbs flicker once a while. Bulbs are non-dimmerable but I thought it wouldn't be a problem as long as I have the dimmer all the way up. So maybe I need a new switch, and I thought it would be nice if I could control the two fixtures independently.

I bought a switch at Home Depot that comes with two switches(white one in the picture).
Home Depot guy told me it's very easy to do, and I miserably failed.

There was one hot wire (labelled 1 in picture) and two cold (2 in picture), 3 must be the ground and I don't know what 4 is... must be the one sending the power back(?).

I connected the two cold wires to each switch, one to the top and one to bottom switch, and when I toggled the top switch both lights came on and off, and the bottom switch was toggling the AC wall outlet in the room.

Am I out of hope?

 

[hj]

Given your description of the wires, I do not think YOU should be trying to rewire the system. It is most likely NOT possible to do what you want to anyway.

 

[Sponsor]

 

[newbie386]

ok.
I put the original dimmer switch back on but my Phillips Scene Switch LED bulbs occasionally gets dim or flicker even with the dimmer all the way up all the time. The bulbs also flicker when I use my printer, so the ac outlet power must be affecting too.
Do you think replacing with non-dimming switch would help?

 

[Jadnashua]

Dimmers come in numerous flavors. When you have non-dimmable light fixtures or bulbs, generally, you do not want a dimmer in the circuit - not all of them ever act like a simple on/off (shorted/open) switch. Yes, you could replace the dimmer with a simple on/off switch. Whether it will help or not with the dimming/flickering, depends on how the rest of the system is wired, but it won't hurt. Your existing dimmer does not appear to use or need a neutral and what it is doing is connecting the leads on the black pigtail to those on the grey pigtail to pass power.

As to whether you can control each lamp individually without adding more wires, can't say. Note, some dimmers require a neutral in the box. Installers are not always very good at properly marking the wires. Since it sounds like a receptacle is also powered/controlled from power in that location, it can get a little messier. You never really want to have a dimmer IN the circuit for a receptacle.