Like many of you I like to do as many of my home repairs/improvements myself. I ran into an unexpected situation today and don't really know what to do so I turning to my fellow GJ members for answers.
I recently installed a motion sensor light near the patio where there was originally a floodlight. I noticed when it came on (switch turned on) it would burn for a few moments, go out and then come back on.
Did it repeat this behavior pattern more-or-less indefinitely, or did it "settle down" after one or two cycles? If the latter, this would not in and of itself cause me much alarm; but in combination with the OTHER things you mention, it's probably a significant symptom.
Something didn't seem right so I took it down and checked the voltage.
In the picture below you will see a white and black wire (at least has black tape on it) with orange wire nuts. The wire with a blue wire nut is ground. When I measured between black and wire I read no voltage. When I read each one to ground I got 120 volts on each. (And this was with the switch in the off position).
OK, let's TRY to be clear here...
First, is there a real junction box behind that vinyl soffit material? Or do you simply have some loose wiring poking through a hole? It should come as no surprise that
IF it is the latter, that needs to be fixed. Your symptoms COULD be explained simply by years of abrasion/deterioration of improperly secured wiring causing a (possibly partial) short between the various conductors. (Heck, just the sharp edge of that vinyl itself is enough to give me pause.)
Second, is this light fixture controlled by ONE and
ONLY ONE switch? Or is there a second switch somewhere which can also control the light?
Next item: The color of the wire nuts is irrelevant. What matters (or rather, SHOULD matter) is the color of the wires themselves. Assuming a single-switch installation, what you SHOULD have in that box is one "Hot" wire (black), one "Neutral" wire (white), and one "Ground" wire (either green or bare copper). If this is wired for so-called "3-way" switching, then you could also have a red wire (which would be one of the "Travellers"). Either way, that black wire needs to REALLY be black; "re-marking" wires smaller than AWG 6 is prohibited by code.
Could be any number of things.
I thought I was supposed to be getting 120 volts between the white and black.
That depends. Did you measure the voltage with the switch in BOTH positions? With the switch open ("Off"), power to the fixture (normally on the "Hot" side) is interrupted by the switch. Hence, you would get no voltage between that hot wire and either the Neutral or the Ground.
With the switch closed ("On"), but with the fixture removed and the wires left disconnected, you should get ~120V between the "Hot" wire and BOTH the Neutral and the Ground.
In EITHER case, you should get zero volts (or damn close to it) between the Neutral and the Ground (and/or the junction box itself, presuming it is metal), at all times. If you are reading 120V (or anything even remotely close to it) between the Neutral and the Ground, you have a "floating" (i.e., "BAD") Neutral somewhere "upstream" of that switch loop -- and THAT would definitely need to be fixed. [OTOH, don't sweat it too much if you see a very small (perhaps one or two volts) voltage on the Neutral relative to the Ground, particularly with the switch "On" but no real load on the circuit, and especially if you are using a very high-impedance meter to read the voltages; this would likely be the product of induced current from the Hot & Neutral wires running together over a significant distance, and is SOMEWHAT normal.]
Did someone wire this for 220?
Near-certainly, no. While 240V light fixtures exist, they're not the sort of thing you'd find on a typical residential front porch; and they WOULD be much more "seriously" installed than what is depicted in your photo.
