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| Just zapped myself (electrical wiring help) |
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| mimic:
I don't feel like looking for some electrical forum and going through signing on process. I know many of you are highly knowledgeable in electrical wiring and maybe can help me. I am replacing a ceiling lamp. The previous one had 3 wires 1 ground and 2 not polarized straight copper wires in clear sleeves. One was connected to 2 white wires twisted together, the other to the single blue one and ground wire to the frame. I assumed blue is hot and whites are just neutral. Grabbed some tester and touched the blue and white with switch off and the tester remained off. Imagine my surprise when I touched the white ones alone, just to get zapped!!!! WTF!!!!!!? In the process of me screaming like a a girl I managed to untwist them and the kitchen lights went off!! So they need to stay twisted I can only twist another wire to it. I started testing again and it turns out one of the 2 twisted white wires is hot at all times!! (or so it seems) The blue becomes hot when switch is on. How do I wire this to the lamp that has white/black wires? Instruction calls to connect black to hot There is also a pair of red wires sticking out, but they were not wired to anything so I'm not touching them. EDIT: Wired White to white (I decided it's a return from the kitchen light) and Black to Blue. It seem to work ok. |
| jennifer:
Jennifer laughed so hard, I almost choked on my muffin, :laugh2:...If I am reading that right, My guess is that other white neutral wire is going to another live circuit, as a pass through to most likely the other lights in the room. |
| PL1:
First and foremost, assume that the guy who wired it last time did it wrong and/or used non-standard wire colors. >:D Second, where are you located? - Different countries have different standard colors. - The wire colors you mention don't seem to match standard colors. Third, is this ceiling light wired with "3-way" switches? (two switches, flipping either switch will toggle the light on/off) - Red wires are often used in AC circuits as "traveller" wires. Fourth, figure out where and how all the wires are connected and diagram the connections. - The extra unused red wires may have been used for a ceiling fan. Fifth, pull the circuit breaker when you're connecting/disconnecting wires so you don't do the herky-jerky again. :lol Scott |
| DaOld Man:
If it is America, and if the light only has one switch. The white wire going down to the switch will be tied to the hot wires in the ceiling box. The black wire coming back up from the switch will tie to the hot wire on the lamp (black or in your case blue). The white wire on the lamp will tie to the other neutrals (whites) in the ceiling box. The white in the switch box will be hot. This is commonly refereed to as "switch leg" or "switch loop". It is so a black wire goes back to lamp. (Cant have two whites feeding the lamp.) Got any pics? Maybe point out the white wire that shocked you? Retired electrician with over 40 years under my belt. Here is a crappy drawing I found on the web, maybe it will help. Also note that if you remove the neutrals (white) wirenut, the load going out will come back on the white you lifted, making that white wire hot. (If the load going out is turned on somewhere). It is best to kill all the power on a circuit before working on it. Just a note for future reference. You said the old lamp had copper in clear plastic sleeves. I call this lamp cord. Anyway that cord is polarized. if you look on the plastic housing, one conductor sleeve will have lines in it. This is the neutral. In a few very rare cases, i have found one of the wires is copper colored and the other is silver or nickel colored. In this case, the nickel color is neutral. |
| Ropi Jo:
Qualified electrician here, from England (we are called 'sparkies' here). Our colours are different to yours, and so are our installation methods from what I read here. Wires twisted together? What's all that about? My advice... follow the guidance of qualified bods only, who know your local electrical practices. DaOldMan sounds like he knows what he's talking about. |
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