Help wiring a shop light to a plug...

[Luckydevil]

I bought this light and didn't realize that it was meant to be hardwired until I got it home. I want to attach a plug to this light.

I was just planning on soldering it up to one of my spare cheapo 2 wire extension cords. Will this be okay?

Thanks ahead of time guys.

 

[bmwpower]

Will it work? Probably. Is it the proper way to do it? Probably not. You don't want to use that type of cord as it's not meant to be spliced. Plus, you'll want to put the connection in a junction box.

What I would do would be to go to Home Depot and purchase the following:

- Small metal junction box with cover
- 14/2 "commercial extension cord" wire (SJO cord, etc.)
- 15A commercial type plug (the ones you can take apart)
- some wire nuts
- romex connectors (the metal type)

Run the wire from the light into the j-box (through the romex connectors). Run the extension cord wire into the junction box through another opening in the j-box (through romex connector). Wire black to black, white to white. Terminate ground from extension cord to j-box ground connector. Terminate extension cord wire with plug.

 

[TOMWELDS]

You can buy pre-made cord sets, but sometimes its easier and cheaper to but a 16/3 extension (one of those orange one's) and dump the receptacle end. Dont solder. As stated, use a RX connector and wirenuts. Just make sure you use a 3 wire as you need to ground it.

 

[JohnHenrys48]

Plus, you'll want to put the connection in a junction box.

How about running the new wire inside the lamp housing and splicing there...bypassing the additional junction box ?

 

[TOMWELDS]

I didnt say but my suggestion was meant as in running the cord into the fixture housing. Good point to mention.

 

[malibu101]

Absolutely make sure it is grounded. Look at the ballast, I bet it says that the lamps should be mounted within 1/2" of a grounded surface. I have seen many fixtures that operated sporadically when not grounded. After grounding they worked fine all the time.

 

[bmwpower]

How about running the new wire inside the lamp housing and splicing there...bypassing the additional junction box ?

Assuming you could pull the wires back into the housing and run the heavier cord through the remaining hole, you should be able to.

 

[bmwpower]

Absolutely make sure it is grounded. Look at the ballast, I bet it says that the lamps should be mounted within 1/2" of a grounded surface. I have seen many fixtures that operated sporadically when not grounded. After grounding they worked fine all the time.

After looking at this again, you're right. My guess is that it is meant to be mounted using metal conduit attached where the wires exit the housing... hard to tell from the picys. The conduit would be the ground.

If you run the wires to a j box as is, there is no ground connection to the j box or the rest of the system.

 

[Luckydevil]

Damn, so last night I got to playing with the light and got it wired up. From what you guys are saying it sounds like I did it wrong though. It works, but like somone said above, but probably not the best way to do it.

I ended up using the 2 wire extension cord in the pic, but it looks like it will be coming off now. After looking at it I realized there is a ground screw on the housing.

So basically if I switch over to a three pronged extension cord and use the wire for the bottom prong to connect to the ground screw and keep the small wires inside the housing it will be okay right? Just out of curiosity, why is it a bad idea to solder the wires together on this?

Thanks for helping me out guys.

 

[bmwpower]

I see several knockouts along both sides of the housing. I would run the new cord through one of the knockout holes using a screw on romex connector. Running it through that small hole could eventually cut the wire.

 

[TOMWELDS]

Soldering isnt 'a bad job'. Actually its a good connection. It's just quicker and more practical to use wirenuts. And some ballast leads look like they're plated copper, so i dont even know if the solder will stick.

 

[Luckydevil]

How's this look?

 

[bmwpower]

Aaaahh. Much better. Nice shrink tubing work there, Lucky.

 

[TOMWELDS]

Good and grounded......

 

[Luckydevil]

Thanks for the help guys.

 

[PatrickW]

I did somethng similar.

I cut off one end (the "female" end) of an ordinary extension cord, and spliced that into the wires coming out of the florescent light fixture.

The other end of the extension cord (the "male" plug) I ran over top the ceiling and into one of those plug-in adapters that screws into an incandescent bulb recepticle (like where you would normally screw in an ordinary light bulb). There was originally an incandescent light in my garage, and I replaced it with a nice florescent fixture without doing any fancy wiring.

It works fine, but it's probably not the way a paid electrician would do it.

- Patrick

 

[nash123]

Here is a similar case...

I bought this light:

http://www.regentlighting.com/commo...egent&category=Floodlights: Halogen&id=11963

user's manual:

http://www.cooperlighting.com/specfiles/instGuides/MQF150_W 825-0143.pdf

and I am trying to wire it so that I can plug it in in the garage. I bought a 10' long extension cord and cut the female end. I also bought a junction box. I connected the black wire to black, white wire to white using the yellow wire nuts.


Questions:

1. The extension cord wires are much thicker than the wires coming out of the light. Will this be a problem? How can I match the wire sizes coming out of the light with the extension cord wires?

2. The ground wire connections are a bit questionable. The bare wire coming out of the light will be connected to the bare wire from the extension cord with a wire nut. The bare wire coming from the green screw of the light (connected to the screw with a pigtail) and the bare wire (not supplied) coming from the green screw of the j-box will also somehow need to be connected to the bare wire on the extension cord. What is the best way to do it? I was thinking about running the wire from the light green screw to the j-box green screw (tighten it under the j-box screw) and run that same wire to the bare wire on the extension cord and connect all three bare wires with one wire nut. Would this be acceptable? The attached pic shows what I am planning to do. The local Home Depot does not sell any bare wire with pigtails, which I found interesting

Any advice?

Thanks in advance.

 

[nash123]

And here is the "before" pic, where you can kind of see the wire thicknesses etc.

 

[nash123]

And finally, I found out that the extension cord says on it: 3/C 16AWG. I believe it means 3 conductors (white/black/green), right? How about 16AWG? Does it tell me anything about the size of the wires?

 

[nadogail]

16 AWG tells you that your 3 conductors are sized at 16 American Wire Guage. Very adequate for your new light. Bigger numbers are smaller wires, 16 Guage is adequate for your lamp.