I haven’t installed light fixtures in a while, but now I notice that fixtures come with a lead (or set of wires) for each socket in multi-socket light fixtures. Never noticed this before or never wired enough I guess. Does one a) connect the similar wires from each socket together with a third wire and wirenut, and then connect the other end of the third wire to the supply, or b) connect all similar wires and supply together with a wirenut? I saw no reason to do the first (a), until I saw a fixture I was removing wired like this (albeit with insulation ripped out, ground not attached, and wirenut sloppily wrapped with electrical tape). Is there a “right” and/or best way to do this?
In the same vain, is the empty area between fixture and electrical box considered part of the box? In other words, in situation (a), the wirenut was not in the box, but in the space between, hanging around.
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Greetings guy,
This post, in response to your question, will bump the thread through the 'recent discussion' listing again.
Perhaps it will catch someones attention that can help you with advice.
Cheers
"Live Free,
not Die"
I thought you were somebody else till I see the bump.
What's the RAZZ? Didn't like your old name?
Change your ROAR too? What is it now? ROARZZ?
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be one"Live Free, not Die"
Go with (b). You can nut all the black fixture wires together with the hot supply, and all of the white fixture wires with the neutral. If the fixture has a ground terminal or a green ground lead, use it. Do your best to get the wire nuts up into the box. It should be relatively easy, even with a pancake box. Sometimes the fixture leads are short enough and the fixture base big enough so as to make this difficult.
Yep, the manufacturer was being lazy/cheap and didn't tie the wires from the two sockets together. It would be nice if the mfgr had riveted the wires together on the sockets, so you only had to deal with two. Just nut all the whites (including the incoming power) together and all the blacks (ditto) together.
Generally when doing this one should pass all the fixture wires through the fixture back and into the mounting box, then nut them together there. The mfgr can get away with doing connections inside the fixture, but it's not intended to be a junction box.
Edited 2/5/2005 10:00 pm ET by DanH
Thanks for the input all. That is the way I wired it (b). I know code calls for a single wire to a terminal (like for a plug/socket) but did not know why the previous electrician-type wired the similar fixture with a pigtail from the fixture wires to the supply. Does it make a difference if the supply wire on one side has a common wire (hot in, hot out tied together for multiple lights/switches) so that the two fixture hots need to be joined to two "supply" wires (two solid, two stranded in this case)?
There was plenty of room in the box. All the fixtures in the house have the insulation between fixture face and wall removed, I can see traces left behind. That can't be good. . .
It's fine if the nutted connection contains other wires for the circuit. The only caveat is that with two large and two small wires it's iffy whether you can get a good connection (the small wires fall in the cracks between the two large ones and aren't easily "captured" by the nut). For this reason pigtailing may be necessary.
Try it without pigtails first and see if you feel confident that you have a good connection.