Location Of Connection

I am only using a simple "non-contact" voltage detector. I am getting a reading from the switch, along part of the line and then at the lights themselves, but the lights are not coming on. I have not gotten into the attic yet to check the line and junction box. What could cause this? An open connection or loose connection? Any help with troubleshooting would be great.



This is a new install of lights, they were not existing. Power is at the switch. Had single pole now I have a double switch. (the existing light that was on the single pole is still working fine). At one  point I connected just the new lights to the existing power, single pole switch, and still did not have lights.
      

I just ordered some Arlington Siding Mount Kits with built in electrical boxes to install some lights on the outside of my garage. 



So, the issue is, the mount kits' built in electrical boxes are only 6.8 cu each and I'm wiring the lights up with two 3-way switches.  The source is at the first switch, then on to the two lights and then to the second switch.  There is not enough room to do the splices and connection in the built in boxes (I'm using 12awg, but even if used 14 still not enough room), so my plan was to wire everything to a central junction box inside the garage between the two lights and make the appropriate connections there. 



I'm attaching my rough sketch of the planned connections (omitting ground wires).  Can you guys please confirm this is correct?    Thanks for the help!



To clarify the drawing, blue is white (neutral) and the blue with black tape coming off second switch is marked as hot.  (I'll also mark it as hot in the J-box).  Yellow Triangles are wire-nuts.
      

I could use some help. I have an existing switch (power to switch) that is powering a light I plan on eliminating. I want to add two new lights to my garage and use the power from that switch for the lights. What is the best way to wire the lights from the switch? A diagram would be really helpful.



14/2 at the switch (black, bare copper, white).



Thanks
      

Hello. I'm a new home owner and DIY-er. I have 3 fluorescent lights  in my basement. I just replaced the fixtures' older ballasts with new  T8 ballasts in the first two lights and they work fine. I am having  trouble with the third light's wiring to the ceiling. I cut and removed  the old ballast without paying much attention because I was able to wire  the first two lights without any problem. I connected the new ballast  to the bulb sockets in the fixture, just like I did with the first two  lights. When I went to connect the ballast's black and white power lines  to the ceiling lines, I was thrown off by a red wire, which I guess is  connected to the light switch.  In addition, this light is connected to  the one of the other fluorescent lights and both are controlled by the  switch. I have attached  pictures of how I have it wired.



The way I have it wired now,  the other light turns on and works fine when the switch is flipped.  However, this light has the bulb flicker and then not turn on. If anyone  can tell what I'm doing wrong from looking at the pictures, I'd  appreciate any help! Thanks!
      

Having a brain freeze, if someone could take a moment to explain this to me, it would be greatly appriciated. I am wiring four recessed lights in a bedroom, off one switch. I am going to grab power off an outlet. Does the power have to go into the switch box first and then out to the first light? and then on to the others? Can I get power from an outlet and then wire each of the lights and bring the last one to the switch box? I dont want the switch to control the outlet, just the recesed and I am trying to determine where I can get the power from and if it has to go into the switchbox? I am drawing a blank.

Thanks!
      

This is kind of a complicated question, but I  think I have figured out how to do it right.  I wanted to run it by some folks here before going to the city code enforcer.  See the attached diagrams for details.



I  am planning a fairly elaborate lighting scheme for my home theater  area, mostly because I plan for the theater automation to be a hobby for  me. (I'm an electrical engineer)

 

I want to have banks of lights that I could later choose to group  differently onto dimmer switches.  For example, I have six can lights.   Some people I have talked to think I should dim the front four together  and back two separately.  Some think I should dim the front two together  and back four separately.  Some say I should dim them all together. 



So I decided I'd run each group of two cans to a junction box, run  the switches to a junction box, and then wire the switches to the lights  in the junction box - then I could later change it if I decided it should work  differently.  In addition, this would keep the junction boxes the  dimmers were in free from extra wires, since I plan to buy nice dimmers  that are fairly deep and would take more space in the switch boxes.  And  if I find that using switches differently would make it more intuitive,  I can change which switch controls which lights easily after the fact.   This would also allow me later to possibly control the lights with an  automated system.

 

There are some track lights and rope lights, as well as a couple  receptacles that would all come back to the junction box where they'd be  connected to the switches/dimmers.



I am bringing in power from  two circuits to balance the lighting.  I plan to put some of the lights  on one circuit and some on the other.  The second circuit has some other  stuff on it already, so it has less load left over, so most stuff will  go on the first circuit.

 

Also to save on wiring and make running wire easier, I was planning  to use 14/3 wiring where possible.  Any given 14/3 wire would  always be connected to only one of the circuits (no shared neutrals).



The attached files show my exact plan for each circuit. Note they both  share the junction box in the upper right corner of the pictures, they  also share the switch banks.  This allows me to decide which switches  control which lights, as well as decide which lights will be powered on  which circuit to balance them properly.  Note that the track lights are  each 2 circuit track, that's why I'm running 14/3 to each.

   

See the attached files for circuit #1 and circuit #2



I am running 14/3 NM to the switches.  I was planning to have two  switches share one 14/3 cable.  I am also running 14/3 to each group of  two light groups that I want to control separately.



I've also attached a diagram from the perspective of the junction box.



I also attached an example circuit on how I plan to use the 14/3 wire.

   

Here are some other decisions I made:



- The junction box will  be PVC 8x8x4 (256 cu. in.)  All the wires coming into the box add up to  70 cu in. so the box should be plenty large.

- All the grounds from both circuits will be tied together

  - The neutrals for both circuits will always be kept completely separate (NO shared neutrals)

- No 14/3 wire will ever carry power from more than one circuit (this would violate the shared neutrals anyway)



Even  though this is kind of elaborate and for hobby, I want to be sure to do  it safely and up to code.  Does anyone see anything wrong with  my plan?

 

Thanks,



Daniel
      

Hey everyone - question about home wiring that was done when the house  was built about 20 years ago (which putting it delicately...is very  shoddy at best).  I'd like to think of myself as fairly knowledgeable in  basic home wiring...but this one has me baffled and I really hope  someone can help.



I am redoing a screened-in porch at the back of our house.  There is  currently a working outlet, and single-pole switch that turns on an  outside bug zapper, and a wire running coming into a second  switch...then leading into nothing in the ceiling (presumably for a  future ceiling fan / light install that was never completed).  I gutted  the entire porch and using one of those audible voltage testers,  discovered the wire than ran into the second switch / ceiling box did  NOT work. 



Not thinking much about it, I tried figuring out how the first switch  (to that outdoor bug zapper) was wired.  Most of the wiring for that  switch and the outlet I mentioned is behind the plywood sheathing of the  house...so it's near impossible to figure out where it goes.  Initially  it LOOKED like the power from the circuit panel came into the outlet  first...and then went out to the bug zapper switch.  (Why did I think  this?  The outlet had a B/W wire coming into it...and another B/W going  out back into the wall somewhere.  Tracing that wire along the basement  foundation best I could...it looked like it went right into the bug  zapper switch).  So wanting to completely eliminate the bug zapper  switch, I disconnected all of the wires that were connected to the  outlet to figure out which set was leading to it.



Here's where I got confused.  When I did this and re-tested voltage at  the outlet, one set of wires was live...and the other set was dead.  And  that makes perfect sense.  Yet the bug zapper switch STILL worked.  OK -  so my conclusion: the power for this bug zapper switch isn't coming  from the outlet.  No problem.  But just because I was near it, I decided  to also check that 2nd switch / ceiling wire combo...and what do you know - it was LIVE!



I got super excited it was working but then super baffled because I  didn't do anything to that ceiling wire at all.  In fact - all I did was  DISconnect 2 sets of wires at a nearby outlet. 



Confused but happy, I was ready to pack it in for the evening and  re-connected the incoming / outgoing wires back to the power outlet.   Flipped the circuit breaker on.  No issues.  BUT - now all of a sudden  the 2nd switch / ceiling wire that magically started working was NO  longer working - just like it hadn't been since I started this whole  process. 



Logic is telling me it's obviously got something to do with the outlet  wiring...since that's the only thing I messed with.  But why would the  ceiling wire all of a sudden become LIVE when the wires going into the  outlet were all disconnected?  It's certainly a first for me.  Can anyone help me figure this mystery out?  Thanks gang!
      

I'm trying to fix a problem with a track light installment over the a bar I've just put in. I've done it before. never had issues. but this particular problem is driving me nuts. It just defies logic.  The electrician who actually installed the associated dimmer switches with this dining room area was called as it seems it may be a flaw with his wiring, but he's blown us off and I have to try and solve this myself.



This is how it's all set up. I've been rehabbing our home from top to bottom, and converted our old kitchen into a dining area. Within this dining area are four sets of lights, all controlled from one box containing four dimmer switches. I set up all the new wiring and installation of the lights in the ceiling, and we paid an electrician to come in, check everything out, set up the multiple switches, and connect it all to the board. It's all new copper wiring from beginning to end, as I didn't want to connect or splice in to the old aluminum wiring that was in place. All the new wiring and lights are on a dedicated 15 amp breaker. Three of the sets of lights were set up to be available from the day the electrician came around. The fourth, for the track light over the bar, was left hanging from the ceiling capped off and with the switch off, as I still had work to do installing an overhead wine rack, under which the track was going to be set.



Two days ago I finally got around to putting the track up, but after setting it in place and connecting the power up the lights wouldn't work. I took the lights out to our kitchen, where I installed another track light system some time ago, plugged one of the lights in, and it worked just fine. I then went back to the bar area and used a spare track, then a spare connector, to see if I could isolate the fault, yet neither of the items provided a solution. Now here's the weird bit - every time I tried checking the system out, I'd get 120 volts showing from the wiring and from the track when I'd test with the multimeter. But the second I'd put a light into the track, the multimeter would drop to zero on the voltage reading on either the wiring or the track. Take the light fixture back out, and the voltage would pop back up. Inserting the light was thus completing some kind of odd loop. It wasn't just one light - I double checked by grabbing working lights from the kitchen track and inserting them into the other track - the same problem would pop up. Finally, having come to the conclusion that there was nothing wrong with the track at all, I took the whole assembly over to a nearby wall outlet, used some spare electric cable to connect up to the appropriate slots - presto, the light came on! I even double checked all this by grabbing another light fixture destined for our bathroom, and tried connecting it to the wiring over the bar. Nothing. Yet as with the track light, the minute I took it over to the wall outlet and connected it, the light worked.



So everything logically points to the fact it has to be something to do with this individual circuit, right, because a) the light fixtures work when plugged into another circuit and b) the other three dimmers and lights hooked up in the same box work fine and draw power from the same wire cable/breaker combination. The only things left that I can think of is that the electrician has either wired the dimmer switch up incorrectly or that there's some kind of flaw inside the switch itself. Does this make sense?



A friend also told me to double-check to make sure that the black wire feeding power to the light was indeed the hot wire, and it is.  If I touch it with the black test lead from the multimeter and put the red one to the neutral I show 120 volts. If I keep the black test lead on the black wire and put the red test lead to the ground - I also show 120 volts.



A final point. I know I'm not overloading the circuit - not even close. With all four dimmers maxed and every light on - including the test light on the track - I'd only be drawing 8 amps on a 15 amp breaker, besides which I'm only using one set of lights while I'm working on this problem anyway. This is a dedicated circuit, so there's no additional power being drawn away by something else.



So how am I getting 120 volts from this wiring, according to my multimeter, yet it won't light up ANYTHING and keeps giving off the indication that some kind of loop or short is being created every time I actually plug a light into the track? It's got me totally stumped.



Anyone have any ideas?
      

Hi,



I would like to wire a switch to be able to cut the power to the ceiling mounted outlets that feed our garage door openers. Running new wiring to them will be a bit cumbersome, so I am hoping to avoid that. The ceiling outlets are powered by light fixtures in the garage (one near by each outlet). There is a 3 wire romex cable running from the light switch to the first light and another one between the lights, and then regular 2 wire romex cables from the light fixtures to the outlets. The red wires in the 3 wire cables to the lights are switchable, the black wires are always hot.



I mainly want to be able to cut the power to the doors when we are away on vacation, and the reason for that is that one night both doors somehow opened up - I have no idea why. I'd hate for that to happen when we're away. Unplugging and plugging in the openers is a bit of a hassle due to the high ceiling.



I thought about wiring in a switched outlet so that I could just reach up with a long handle of some sort and switch off the power to the outlet. It would not be ideal, but definitely easier than getting the ladder out and unplugging the door openers.  However, there is possibly another option that I'd like some input on if anyone cares to comment. I believe I could wire in a switch on the wall next to the light switch that would allow me to cut the power to the black wires in the 3 wire cables. This would cut the power to the ceiling outlets and anything downstream from there (possibly an outside light, I would need to check on that).



My question is, are there any potential issues with this sort of wiring? Is there perhaps any code violation if both hot wires in a 3 wire cable can be switched off separately?



Thoughts?
      

Hello there,



I just installed a new fixture in my dining room. It has 5 MR16 halogen bulbs. When i turn on the light switch, the lights are gradually turning on to full brightness. The process takes a between 5 to 10 seconds.



I removed one of the bulb and noticed it took a bit less time and continued until I had only 3 bulbs and then the lights are turning on instantly.



So I think its obvious that the fixture is drawing too much power from the circuit. My question is, why? What tests can I dk to find the cause? Is it a faulty switch or faulty wiring?



Thank you!