Leviton 5226 want pilot to be on when switch is on. only white, black and ground come to box

Dear Dean,
Generally speaking, black indicated "hot", like the color of "burnt". White indicates the color of ground. ( ice or snow)
One of your black wires should be "incoming" ( that means have electricity in it NOW", and the other one would go to where the item was that was timed.
After you find which wire is "hot", the other black wire goes to the opposite side of the switch.
You may need to reverse the black wires if it is wired backwards to the ":on" & "off" readings.
The ground would be the white wire.
If you have a green screw, the ground (white) could go there.

That is cool what is the question and where is the summary?

easy one first: ground wire to green screw. We have to assume the two black wires are the hot(coming from power source) and switch leg(going to light). Switch will have two brass colored screws. Looking at the switch with the off/on markings right side up. Put hot wire on upper screw and switch leg on other brass screw, With nothing hooked up, the hot wire will be the only wire with voltage on it. You can buy a non-contact voltage tester at Lowes or any place that sells electrical supplies. Now we must assume the two white wires are neutrals(one coming from power source and one going to light. The pilot light part of the switch will either have a silver colored screw or a white pigtail on it. all whites hook together. The pilot light is wired internally to the switch leg. Your switch should work properly now.

Review old switches:
Two old switches > each has 2 wires
Old switch 1 > Red and White
Old switch 2 > Black and White
The same white wire connects to both switches, so effectively they count as 1 wire
This means you have 3 wires ... 1 White, 1 Red, 1 Black
Each switch controls a separate load (light, fan, motor)

New Leviton double-rocker switch:
-Leviton has 2 Brass-colored screws on one side, and these screws are connected together by a brass plate >> your Hot wire will connect to brass screw
-Leviton has 2 Silver-colored screws on other side, and neither of these screws are connected in any way >> the wires going to each load will connect on a different screw on this side of switch.

Hot wire: Each box in your house has exactly 1 hot wire that is connected back to breaker box. This is true for all boxes (excluding boxes that have a 3-way & 4-way switches).
We need to identify Hot wire.

-By code the Hot wire is black for identification purposes ... but your box sounds like maybe the Hot wire is White.
-If your Hot wire is white, that is NOT an immediate safety issue ... it will not cause a fire or malfunction ... it is a code violation ... because code requires things be uniform so next electrician knows what previous guy did. So some day, electrician working outside grabs wrong color wire, and wow. I say this so you know.

Moving on.

Identify Hot wire:
-Pull 3 wires up so they can be tested
-Turn on power
-Use ordinary tester, or old lamp with plug cut off and wires stripped back
-Tape tester lead to sticks so hands are away from voltage
-Power is on. Don't stand in water or touch metal pipes, and you're fine.
-You have 3 wires in box + ground wire
-Test all 3 wires to bare ground wire >> when tester lights up, that is Hot wire ... testing is complete

Connect wires to Leviton double-rocker:
-Power is OFF.
-You have 3 wires - 1 White, 1 Black, 1 Red >> one is Hot wire, the other two wires go to load
-Hot wire connects to Brass-colored screws on new Leviton.
-Brass colored screws are connected together by a brass plate so the Hot does not need to connect to both brass screws.
-The other two wires connect to Silver screws on other side of new Leviton switch
-One wire goes to each silver screw
-Connect bare ground wire to green screw.
-Push wires back into box. Use eraser end of pencil if needed.
-Make sure ground wire is back and away from screws on switch
-That's it.

Switch has 2 black wires. One black is hot wire. One black is wire going to fan. Turn off power. Remove wires from switch and separate. Turn power back on. Using ordinary tester, test each black wire to bare copper ground wire. Only one of the black wires will test hot. The other black wire goes to fan.
Timer black wire connects to black hot
Timer blue wire connects to black wire going to fan
Timer white wire connects to white neutral (in absence of white neutral, connect Timer white wire to bare ground)
Timer green connects to bare ground wire

It's the same as you wire any single pole switch.

You need to have a pair of white wires wirenuted and shoved in the back of the box. White to white, black to the hot and blue to the load on the second black. Some of these have a yellow wire for three way connections.

This is a single pole light switch and should be wired as any other SP switch. The only difference is that is has a pilot light. All the white neutral wires are tied together and then pushed back in the box with none connected to the switch. The grounds are tied together with a jumper wire connected to the green screw on the switch. That will leave you with 2 or more black wires. If you have just two normally you can connect them to the two screws on the switch and it does not matter which screws. However it may be that with the pilot light you need to connect the wire going to the light to the top screw and the power wire to the bottom or vice versa. Try both ways. If you have more than 2 black wires you need to connect the incoming power black wire and outgoing power black wires together and then jump to one of the screws on the switch. The black wire left over is the black wire going to the light itself. If none of this works then it is obvious the pilot light in the switch is burnt out.

The neon lamp inside of the switch draws very little current (milli, or mico amps) so there is no significant current flowing to ground.

As for your real question, there are several various types of 3-way pilot switches:
Load on: Pilot on
Load off: Pilot on
Some 3-way pilot switches have an external lead which allows them to be configured either way.
If both of your switches are the same type and are wired correctly, they should work the same.
If you suspect that one is defective, try swapping them.

Depends on whether you want the pilot to glow when the circuit is live (the main light is on) or to glow when the circuit is off. (The switch can be used either way, and I have used this switch in both configurations at different places.)

The wiring diagram is on the inside of the box.

In indicates that if you want the pilot light to glow when the circuit is off, then you only need two wires (the live and the return, usually colored black and white, respectively). However, you also need a ground. The instructions say that you need the ground for safety (and probably legal code) reasons, but I suspect that, without the ground, the pilot light won't work in this configuration.

However, if you want the pilot light to glow when the circuit is on, you probably need a three wire configuration (plus the ground).

Hope this helps.