3 main lines coming into ceiling light box

9 years ago

Man I hope this makes sense to someone. Removed a single bulb poker light from my ceiling so I can install track lights. I know this light was controlled from 3 different light switches so my plan was to make sure I could see how it was connected. Well before I could get the ceiling cover of the light off the junction box the whole light came out. 2 speaker wires clear in color were the only two wires going from the light to the junction box. I finished removing the cover and here is what I see inside the junction box. 3 main 3 wire (white black and ground) coming into the box. All of the whites are together with a wire nut. 2 of the blacks are together with a wire nut and a small pig tail also a black wire coming from this connection. Then I have the last black wire not linked with any of the others? My new track light has black white and ground. Oh all the main grounds are all together too. Here is a picture of what I'm dealing with. Since the old fixture did not have colored wire I assume one was white and the other black "in theory". Since I am looking I only have 2 free wires to hook to. The black pig tail and the single black. I tried hooking the light up just putting all the colors matching together and got power. however when I hit the light switch I kept throwing the breaker?

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Comments (5)

greg_2015
9 years ago
last modified: 9 years ago
First of all, I'm sure it wasn't "speaker wire". It was probably just the lamp's wiring.

One of those lamp wires probably had a ridge on it. That would have been the neutral wire. But I'm assuming you don't know which lamp wire was hooked to which black wire in the ceiling? So that info isn't really helpful to you now.

As you've learned, putting all the similar colours together isn't the solution. One of those black wires is the hot and one is the neutral. Figuring out which is which is the trick. Do you have any type of testing tool? If so, you could make sure that those two wires aren't touching anything, then turn the power back on and carefully test each wire to see which one is hot. Then turn the power off and hook up the hot to the black from the light, the other black(ie the neutral) to the white from the light and add the ground from the light to the wirenut with all of the grounds.

Edited to add: If when you test the two wires, neither is hot then that means that the light would be off. Flip one of the switches and now one of them should be hot.
greg_2015
9 years ago
BTW - If you hook up the wrong black to the wrong wire from the lamp, the lamp will still work but it won't be as safe as it should be. In a typical edison type bulb socket, the little tab at the very bottom of the socket should be the hot and the threads that hold the bulb should be the neutral. If you reverse those, then when you are changing a bulb there is a higher likelihood of touching the threads, so you don't want them to be hot!
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Shawn Rowley
Original Author
9 years ago
Alright Gregg well I was able to read one of the main lines had writing that said "in" the other two lines say out. So I took the pig tail black (spun off the in line)

nd put it to the black on the light fixture. I then went white to the single black and presto. I also hooked the green ground into the bare grounds. Light is working on off just fine now! Thanks for the motivation to get this done.
mtvhike
9 years ago
Before you close everything up, I would take your voltage tester and measure the voltage between the white group of wires and the black one you're treating as if it were white. Have someone turn the switch on and off and make sure that the voltage is always zero. If it passes that test, then take some whiteout or white tape and mark those black wires you are using as white.
weedmeister
9 years ago
finally able to post something.

In your first picture, the two wires (both black) are what go to the new lamp. My guess is that this is a 4-way where the power comes in to this box rather than to one of the switches (you said 3). The black that goes to the other 2 (3 total) blacks is the hot side. The other black that is by itself is going to a 14/2 'bundle' that is essentially a switch loop. It switches the neutral side of this circuit.

The other wire 'bundle' is a power wire proceeding off to somewhere else. In the picture, is is the wire behind the grounds and looks like it has a '2' on it.