Connecting Shop Lights?

[Mario]

Ok, so I got some 'general strip-lights' for my basement, and they give me a black and white wire to get power.. so I figure ok, run this to a light switch. How? The guy at Home Depot was talking about ground wires, green wires, and I don't see any of those. :confused: :confused: :confused: Anyone with some electrical experience here?

[hotrod]

Your lights are AC lights so it really doesn't matter much which side you connect to where. The current does not care because it reverses direction 60 times a second.

Grounding becomes is an issue for safety on some switchs and plugs so that grounded case tools are properly grounded. The connections on things like motors matter to get proper rotation etc, but on a light you should be able to hook them up either way no problem.

Here's a how to for a garage flood light and a light switch how to that might be helpful.

http://www.thisoldhouse.com/toh/knowhow/handbook/article/0,16417,437727-4,00.html
http://www.onthehouse.com/wp/20001127

The lighting circuit just runs one hot lead and one ground lead to the light. The hot lead is the one that is switched. If you have a ground wire, just connect it to the case of the light. When you take the cover off a switch box you will be able to see which wire the switch is controlling. That should be the hot lead.

To be consistant with the other wiring in the house, just switch the same side as is switched in other lights. My recollection is that the black wire is usually the hot (switched side) and the white is the neutral (unswitched side).
If you have a ground it will be either green or bare.


Larry

[Mario]

Thanks man - I am way to tired to interpret this tonight, so I'll look into it tomorrow. :D

[hotrod]

Hope the info and web pages help.
Just thought I'd mention that there are a couple of situations where either the white or back can be hot, so always take appropriate electric shock precautions.

Unless there is no other way de-energize the circuit by flipping the circuit breaker. Don't wire in your shower, or duining a lightning storm :D etc.

In the case of double switched lights (like the kind you typically have in a basement stair case where you can shut off the light with either the switch at the top or bottom of the stairs you can expect either the black or white to be hot depending one the switch positions. The green / bare wire should NEVER be hot.

If you don't have one you ought to pickup one of those little plug in testers that will tell you if your wall plugs are wired correctly. Much better than carrying around a lamp to be sure the circuit your working on is really dead ( you got the correct circuit breaker) and it will alert you to some common wiring faults. They only cost a few bucks and in my opinion are a must have if your going to be sticking screw drivers in to wiring boxes.

;)

Larry

[exciv2000]

I always thought white was hot and black was negative? but then again, I'm not a wiring whiz either.

[Jai SI]

In this case I don't think it matters which wire is hot or negative like hotrod said. I wired up those shop lights in my garage and running the wires either way, the lights still lit up. Oh and I just ran wires off of an existing lighting fixture so that that switch still turned on the lights.