Adding new circuits [Archive]

ninercub

January 19th, 2004, 08:20 AM

I am adding new circuits to my service panel for my basement. I am separating the lights into separate circuits and adding more for outlets so I can separate the finished part and my shop area. I added a circuit for my shop lights with the power going to the 1st light and continues on to a 3rd light. From the 3rd light I wired to my switch. I pigtailed all connections at the lights with black-black & white-white. The black is connected to the brass screw and the white to the silver screw. Now when I turn on the breaker, it only works when the switch is in the off position but the lights come on. As soon as I use the switch the breaker clicks off the circuit. I have tried switching the wires at the switch, but no difference in the performance. What am I doing wrong?

Wgoodrich

January 19th, 2004, 09:25 AM

This is a good trick or the trade subject.

What you and many more before you did wrong is not realize the black power conductor from the panel must pass through the switch then to the first light then daisy chain from light to light with the hot not passing through the light bulbs but passing in a "T" fashion through a wire nut and only a pigtail black wire going to each light. White is wired in the same manner but the white does not go through the switch but instead goes directly to the first light and is daisy chained from light to light.

The mistake you did not realize is the switch is a controller. The controller must be placed before that hot wire reaches any the light fixtures themselves.

What you did if you were thinking of a traffic officer controlling traffic is you placed the traffic officer on the highway after all the cars passed through the area to be controlled. Bit late to do any good to guide traffic through an intersection if that controller is placed after the intersection has been passed through.

Same goes for this string of light fixtures. You placed the switch [aka controller] after the power already got through the light fixtures.

Move the wire from the switch that you placed in the last light fixture and install it so that wire from teh switch to the light fixture is in the first light where power first appears. Then route that hot wire from the panel down the white wire, through the switch then back to the light fixture by way of the black wire in the same cable as that white wire. This makes that white wire a hot switch leg wire not a neutral wire.

All you are doing is creating a detour from that panel with that hot wire going to the FIRST light fixture and running to the switch box through the switch then back to that first light fixture then daisy chaining from fixture to fixture. The white wire from the panel being the grounded leg [aka neutral wire] comes from the panel to the first light fixture white wire or silver screw of that fixture then daisy chaining that white grounded leg [aka neutral wire] directly to the light fixtures not going by way of the switch leg to the switch.

A normal switch with power in the going to the light fixure first must have that switch leg detour. This single pole switch will have no white grounded leg [aka neutral wire] in that switch box. The white wire in the switch leg cable is a hot wire of the switch leg. This is one of the few places a white wire may be a hot wire and only if serving power to a switch not from a switch back to the light fixture. The wire coming from the switch back to the light fixture must be black red or any color but green or white. The power detoured from power source to the light switch is the only wire allowed to be white that detours pour to the switch. Black or any other color wire except green or white, from switch to the light must be used.

Hope this helps

Wg