Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with wiring

let there be light!

crazylegs — Sun, 06 Dec 2009 06:22:37 -0800

Help me re-wire a complicated old lamp. Yes, yes, I've done it again. Taken something apart that I can now not put back together. This is a lamp with a single bulb on top and three smaller bulbs further down. I tried to rewire it and made a big pop. Oops.
The small print: The switch for the upper light is separate, and not a problem. I need to rewire the part in between the three smaller bulbs. What I have is two wires coming down from the top bulb, two wires coming up from the power source, two wires coming out of each small bulb, and one wire coming out of the switch that controls the three smaller bulbs. Total of 11 wires. When I took it apart these were connected in three groups. I thought I kept track of how they were configured but obviously I was wrong. There is probably a diagram of this somewhere on the internet but I couldn't find it. Any directions to such a diagram, or instructions about how to configure these 11 wires into three groups so that everything works, would be greatly appreciated!

Elegant solution or jury-rigged joke?

longsleeves — Sat, 28 Nov 2009 10:49:57 -0800

Is it common to remove a utility pole but leave a small chunk of it still in use twenty feet up? This is all that's left of the utility pole that used to grace the corner my house sits on. Public Works re-did the street several months ago and the project included new sidewalks. The corner was reengineered while the workers and all the heavy equipment were tearing up the old and installing the new, the utility pole was removed and not replaced. At first we thought this slice of old pole would soon be replaced with either a new pole or at least a new connector or anchoring thingy, yet here it remains, looking a bit like it belongs on a joke picture blog. I've never seen this anywhere else.

It certainly appears secure enough but it sure looks a little weird. I've even heard passersby comment that it looks like a birthday cake caught in some wires. Will it be safe in the long term? Have you ever seen this? I'm also curious if there is electric power transmission involved.

How to splice heavy speaker wire?

Thorzdad — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 08:37:52 -0800

Car audio filter: How best to split/join thick speaker wire in a subwoofer install? We are installing a pair of 10" DVC subs. We will be powering them via a mono amp. The plan is to wire the speakers in series-parallel, to present a 4ohm load to the amp. This requires us to split and T both the pos and neg wires across the subs. What sort of connection would you suggest we use to accomplish the T? A wire nut? That's, basically, 3 12-gauge speaker wire ends coming together. That's a pretty huge wire nut.
Is there some sort of purpose-built junction piece we can use to wire the ends together?

For those unfamiliar with series-parallel wiring, please refer to this diagram. We need to know how best to accomplish the joins at the little red and black dots.

Wiring a dimmer for outlet use

davidriley — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 09:57:33 -0800

Basic wiring: can I put a clamp light on a dimmer? I want a cheap means of fading in and out lights for my makeshift light kit. The dimmer I bought only has one pair of wires, plus an extra red wire and a green ground. I want to send power in and out of the dimmer. Is this possible? Photos inside. http://img441.imageshack.us/img441/1069/dimmer1.jpg
http://img441.imageshack.us/img441/1016/dimmer2.jpg

Identify ceiling fixture wiring

stupidsexyFlanders — Sat, 05 Sep 2009 15:03:38 -0800

Replacing ceiling fixture. Removed old fixture. Help me identify the wiring so I can wire the new one? Very old house, very old wiring. Third floor ceiling (attic is above). Removed old fixture, there was no box, so I tore out a little ceiling to find a joist to nail a new box to.

Now to wire the new fixture. Hanging down are three wires, with one of them actually jacketing two separate wires (individually insulated, but in the same outer insulation). These 2 were twisted together as one wire and connected via wire nut to the old fixture.

So if you call that one wire, then there's that, and then two separate wires. They all have an outer cloth kind of insulation, then inside that the actual wire(s) are insulated with something that was very brittle and crumbled where I touched it. So I'm going to cover everything with heatshrink tubing before I start manipulating it & stripping it and connecting it and folding it into the box, but the question:

how do I figure out which of these 3 (4) wires goes to black on the new fixture, and which to white? Could one be a ground? Do I have to buy a tester thing?

The fixture is controlled by one switch only.

Please hope me keep cool AND entertained!

Osrinith — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 14:24:17 -0800

Old building with old wiring + AC compressor = flickering lights. A question about electronics and possibly using an uninterruptible power supply to even out the electricity supplied to sensitive electronics. Details and question inside. I live in an old apartment building in Chicago that doesn't have any kind of AC so window units are the norm. I was given a fairly powerful window unit as a gift (read: so can't exchange) to keep the large living room cool. It works really well and is perfectly sized for the room, but the power draw when the compressor kicks on causes the lights to briefly dim before the power draw stabilizes. The flickering doesn't bother me (but let me know if it's a dangerous sign, please), but I'm a little worried about keeping expensive electronics (like a stereo system and an LCD HDTV) plugged in with those power fluctuations. Unfortunately, fully half of the apartment is on this circuit, so it's not possible to just run a line to a different circuit. All we've got plugged in are 2 lamps, the overhead light, the entertainment center, and the AC. Even if it's just the lamps on, they still flicker when the compressor starts, so it's pretty clear that this AC compressor is just a tad too powerful for the circuit wiring as it stands now.

Which brings us to the meat of the question. The idea I'm toying with right now that might solve the problem is buying a UPS for the entertainment center so that the battery provides the extra power for the electronics when the compressor starts pulling on the room circuit. The only other solution to the problem (as the situation currently stands) that my googling has turned up is installing an AC compressor motor capacitor. That's a little too intense for something that's only going to be a problem for the next month and a half. Can a UPS can react to a power drop fast enough for it to not register on the electronics? Is there something I haven't thought of? Will the power fluctuations even hurt the expensive electronics? Are my only two options either A) sweat and watch TV or B) be cool and read a book to flickering lamp light? Thanks, Hivemind!

Wiring up an old radiogram

carter — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 10:25:59 -0800

I found a radiogram on the street. There are two short wires out the back, both stripped about 1/4" bare, and no plug. With regard to polarity, does it matter how I attach a new lead and plug? I'm in the US and will be plugging it in to 110V. I did search through previous AskMe posts, but such is the parlous state of my electrical knowledge, I could not come to any firm conclusion.

It's probably a Magnavox Astrosonic, and it's solid state. Here's a couple of photos: 1 2

Light switch making popping noise.

feathermeat — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 06:33:45 -0800

Calling all MeFi electricians: why does my light switch make a popping noise, and will it kill me? I have a light switch in my kitchen that intermittently makes a small popping noise when turned on or off. Usually it'll happen a few times in a row, and then not happen again for several weeks. I have not experienced any flickering/dimming of the light in questions and I have not seen any sparks. There have been a few times when it's happened and I have smelled a little bit of ozone (at least I think it's ozone). I have tried to google this, and it seems like the answers range from "this is going to start a fire, call an electrician immediately" to "the switch is going to stop working eventually, but it's not a safety hazard, so replace it whenever." I don't mind replacing the switch if that is what's needed, but money is tight enough so that I really, REALLY don't want to call an electrician if this is not a big deal.

Ah, obsolence.

converge — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 19:08:18 -0800

I'd like to hook up my new laptop to my old TV, but I can't find the parts. Care to help? Video and audio outputs on the laptop: VGA, HDMI, SPDIF. I also have a headphone jack and a couple of free USB ports.
Inputs on the TV: Component, RCA, and SVideo.
The laptop's an HP Pavilion dv7-1270. TV's an older Sony Trinitron.

I know any solutions will not involve HD, as the TV won't support it. I'm cool with that, though I would like to watch Blu-Ray movies on it anyway (laptop has a drive).

Any suggestions? Do I really need to buy a receiver? Would even that work?

I'm in the dark, Charlie. Again.

GuffProof — Sat, 23 May 2009 11:06:55 -0800

Light bulbs with short life spans + older house = scary wiring problem? For years I've rented a small, old house. There are two rooms (bathroom and kitchen) with ceiling light fixtures. Very basic set up- two light bulbs screw into exposed sockets under a glass cover.

These lights are ALWAYS burning out. Maybe one bulb a month.

Other than being a huge annoyance (high ceilings, shaky step ladder, fear of falling and breaking my neck), every time another bulb goes POP, I wonder if there could be a scary wiring problem.

This doesn't happen with lamps that are plugged in. No problems with other appliances. Fuse has only blown once, years ago, while vacuuming when I had the AC unit running.

I'm using name-brand light bulbs. 60w or 75w max. As I mentioned, each light fixture has 2 bulbs- but they don't both go POP simultaneously, which eases my worry a little bit.

I should probably ask the landlord to inspect, but I hate to deal with him for any reason. He's a slightly creepy guy with absolutely NO home maintenance skills. Everything he's tried to fix around here has been a disaster. Also, he's very cheap and wouldn't spring for a qualified professional to do it. If anything, he'd poke around and make a mess and pronounce it 'fine'.

To prevent a fire, and the loss of everything I own, I'd happily pay a professional to inspect it myself. But I don't know if it's really necessary?

For those with electrical smarts: are short-lived light bulbs a sign of trouble?

The Old Scary Black Wire

nnk — Wed, 20 May 2009 12:48:45 -0800

Is it worth the effort to get Verizon to come out and update the external phone wiring, specifically, I don't have "the gray box" (NID) I've been having problems with my DSL. Service has been very erratic and I've spent lots of time on the phone with Tech assistance. Finally I unplugged my phone (was using a splitter) and plugged the router directly into the jack. So far, everything is working fine.

But, while working through all this, I discovered how scary old the phone wiring is both in and out of my house. I can't even begin to describe the mass of old wires wound around little screws and such inside the house -- but I do know this, there is no gray box on the outside of my house. My phone service comes to my house on a wire, wraps around some kind of a ceramic holder and then down the wall and in through a hole in the masonry by the basement (and wraps around all some grimy fittings and screws on the wall inside).

. . . I am also wondering if I can get them to install the gray box and not charge me (and I kind of wonder if they're at all invested in this kind of stuff what with the advent of Fios and the slow, but coming death of the landline) -- I am really kind of doubting they'll update the interior for free, but I kind of figure the outside is there domain.

I have a very limited budget for this stuff -- So I am trying to figure out what to do.

Fortunately, I don't work for the bomb squad.

Inspector.Gadget — Tue, 12 May 2009 21:19:06 -0800

I need to do some wire splicing on a set of desktop speakers and I'd like some suggestions for improvement. Hey Ask, thanks in advance. I have a run-of-the-mill 2.1 Logitech computer speaker set-up. A quarter-inch jack lead to a wired remote, which leads to a subwoofer, which connects to two smaller speakers. The male 1/4 inch jack that would ordinarily connect to the line out of my laptop's sound card has suffered some wear and/or corrosion. Consequently, rotating the jack allows me to hear audio out of at most one external speaker at a time. Attempts to clean the jack with pencil erasers and rubbing alcohol (separately) have revealed that the problem is at least partly damageds surfaces and failed to remedy it. The internal line-out connection (female) on the sound card is working fine as tested with two sets of headphones.

Here's my plan to fix the jack problem:
1. Buy any cheap device or cable with a 1/4 inch male jack, preferably at a flexible right angle to the cable. Buy a small roll of electrical tape.
2. Cut off the existing jack and remove the molding (but not the inner layer of insulation) around about an inch of the cable that used to connect the jack and the wired remote.
3. Remove the insulation from a small section of the wire and prepare the new cable in a like manner: leave the jack at one end connected to a ~6" piece of the cable it was attached to with the other end stripped.
4. Connect the two stripped sections by twisting, and cover up just past the stripped section of each old cable with tightly wrapped electrical tape.

If I happen to find a wire cap small enough to accomodate the two wires, I'll use that in addition to the electrical tape.

How can I improve on this procedure? Am I doing anything stupid? Any blindingly obvious improvements I'm missing?

Thanks.

Why is my homemade boombox not getting power?

smelvis — Sat, 02 May 2009 14:17:26 -0800

Hooking up old Sony car stereo as a standalone boombox - what am I doing wrong? Followed Metafilter advice, but my wiring is wonky. Posted this question about converting a car stereo into a homemade boombox awhile back. Got good advice, so here's my setup.

Bought a 12V 500mA AC adapter from Radio Shack and snipped off the end. Connected the wire with writing on it (it says: 22AWG 300V CHICK YUET AWM -LF-) to the YELLOW wire from the wiring harness. Sony manual says the Yellow is Power (constant). Connected other adapter wire to RED. Manual says red is Power (ignition). Black (ground) wire from harness is connected to a screw w.rubber washer. Entire assembly is in a wooden box.

No power. Changed 10A fuse. Even swapped the Red/Yellow. No luck.

The manual states the stereo power (when in a car) as 12V DC car battery (negative earth).

So... appealing again to your smarts. Is there something obvious I'm doing wrong, or is this radio shot?

Making wires longer

Xhris — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 07:44:18 -0800

I have several situations where the electrical power is a long way from the electronic device. Is it best/right to run the house power the extended distance and then plug in the device's transformer? Or best/right to plug into the 'mains power' and then run an extended run of the low voltage wire to the device? Image a network router that has a plug in 'power brick' transformer thingy. Outputting 9v and 1A. The router wants to be about 200feet from the closest house power outlet.

Do I have to run 200' of the 110v wire with proper electrical boxes and 'to code' wiring, terminating with a proper outlet where the router is. And then plug in the router's transformer?

OR Do I cut and splice in an extra 200' of low voltage stranded wire (of same gauge) on the 12v side of the transformer and run that to the router ?

I'm thinking about heating of wires, voltage drop, electrical code issues (in the USA) ...

Any thoughts please.

I mentioned "several situations" - in 3 different locations, the devices involved so far are the above mention router, a electronic photo frame and the laptop-like computer that runs off a big 12v power brick (and the computer itself will be an a weather proof enclosure outside).

Thanks

What are these wires for?

SNACKeR — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 07:14:44 -0800

What are these wires for in my kitchen? I am doing some reno this weekend, and removed a wall plate to find these six white wires that look like telephone wire. The wire colours are red, yellow, black, green. Why would 6 telephone wires be run to the kitchen? This house was built in 1992. It is not wired for media as far as I know (no evidence of wires/jacks elsewhere in the house). It does have a security system, but those wires are all running to the control panel located by the front door.

I would like to just cover these up permanently if they have no use, but I don't want to do that if they are charged.

Any ideas why they would be here? Can I drywall over them?

The circuit, she is broken.

Nonce — Sat, 04 Apr 2009 08:35:23 -0800

How can I test wiring for a car radio? I recently purchased a used car that still has the factory radio in it. The rear speakers do not work. I dismantled a few things and took the radio out, and there were no obvious problems with the connection or radio.

Is there a device I can hook up to the wires at the rear speakers to see if they are part of a complete circuit or have a break in them?

My understanding is that there are three options: a break in the wiring to the rear, an internal failing in the head unit, or both speakers are busted and need to be replaced. I welcome advice on how to effectively test each possible fault.

I don't think using a simple multimeter to test for current would be much help, as I would still be facing the possibility of there not being any signal sent out due to a fault in the head unit. And I would prefer not to solder or crimp wires until I know for sure what the problem is, and am replacing whatever needs to be replaced.

Too good a discount?

XMLicious — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 21:06:06 -0800

Construction electrical: why is this service panel on sale at more than an 80% discount? Elsewhere it indicates the original price to be around US$1500 but the current price is almost down to $200. There are several other panel boards marked as "clearance" on the Grainger Industrial web site that have similar massive discounts to their prices, yet there are also many non-sale ones that are near the original price - the original price being what several books have lead me to expect as standard pricing.

I'm not considering buying it, I simply came across this in the course of research while fantasizing about building a dream house. I'm curious as to whether this is really a clearance sale of the sort a retail outfit might have or if there's a more sinister caveat emptor reason for the price, like if the panel is useless in most jurisdictions now due to a recent code change or something.

I have no clue...

Eringatang — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 20:08:35 -0800

Please help me identify these electrical thingies in the house we are buying. We are buying a house built in 1980. There are two electrical-looking thingies and we don't know what they do--neither do the home inspectors, current owner, nor the electricians that we have asked. Please help!

Mystery thingy #1
It is a "green" house from the 1980s, with passive solar heating (internal brick walls heated by sun through southern-facing windows) and it also has two fireplaces. It is possible that these fireplaces were an integral part of the heating system at some point. There is a box attached to the wall next to the basement fireplace. It looks like this inside. What is it?

Mystery thingies #2
These black-and-white capsule-looking thingies are under the porch. There are kennels under the porch, and there is a sprinkler system in the back yard. It is possible that the thingies have something to do with these, but also possible they are unrelated. What the heck are they?

Confused by Cat5e voice and data wiring

iknowizbirfmark — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 10:30:42 -0800

I'm trying to do all the wiring in my house in order to distribute data and voice connectivity to each of the locations to which Cat 5e is run. It's been a while since I've done wiring (last time was probably a college job maybe 15! years ago), and I've got a few questions about how to set this all up. Sorry for the length, but I wanted to be as clear as possible about my current set-up. All the inbound and outbound wiring goes into a structured wiring enclosure from Open House, using their data termination hub.

My current set-up: my Comcast cable modem's RJ-45 output is plugged into my WRT54G, which broadcasts a G network. The WRT54G's 4 outputs go to:

an Apple Airport Extreme to broadcast an N network to faster wireless devices;

a Slingbox;

the DirecTV receiver;

and a computer at that location for playing video and music and browsing internet on the attached display.

I want to connect the 4 outbound wiring locations to the wired network. So far, I have just wired in the outbound wiring to an data termination hub, matching the colors on the wires to the colors on the hub. Then, I wired all the jacks attached to that outbound wiring using the T568A standard. All the jacks seem to work fine, and I can remove one of devices currently attached to the WRT54G and connect that output to the jack on the termination hub which corresponds to each of the outbound wires. I get connectivity at the other end of each of the wires, and things seem to work well.

Question 1: Is there a way to check that this wiring is done correctly? I get the same kinds of numbers through Speedtest that I get from wireless devices on the network and the devices wired directly to the WRT54G, but it's limited by the outbound network connection and not anywhere close to 100baseT capacity. Is there a way to verify that the wiring is done correctly, or does the fact that I have a good internet connection mean that all is good? When I finally get a decent LAN set up, I feel like I will be using much more of the "capacity" of my wiring set-up, and I'm not that sure of my skills and connections.

Question 2: What do I need to put between the WRT54G and the jacks on the Cat 5e termination hub in order to distribute the network to each remote jack? Will an simple unmanaged hub do, as long as the WRT54G is not overwhelmed by the number of different active connections? Can I use a hub at each remote jack, if I want to have multiple wired devices in each remote location? Or do I need an actual switch between the WRT54G and the Cat 5e jack connected to each remote jack? What does an unmanaged hub actually do? If the WRT54G does all the routing and switching, do I just need to physically connect the right wires at the remote jacks, so that I could just wire multiple jacks into the same wire and let the WRT54G figure it all out? Bonus question: Whether I need a hub or a switch, will I find anything to fit nicely into my Open House enclosure? Is this or this what I need?

Question 3: Eventually, I will probably want to use the Cat5e drops to provide voice to the remote jacks as well. How can I figure out what twisted pair or pairs actually carry the voice signal from the phone company? Can I determine this by looking at the network interface box? How can I pass the voice and the data for the network over the same Cat5e cable, even if the maximum data speed is slower, maybe limited to "10baseT" speeds? Which wires get wired where?

Thanks for any help you can provide to a guy who hasn't messed around with low-voltage wiring since the mid 90s!

Household electric quandry

silsurf — Wed, 18 Feb 2009 18:39:11 -0800

Odd electrical behavior in my bathroom? About two years ago I put a new light fixture in my bathroom. At the same time I also installed and inexpensive wall dimmer.

About a year ago I started experiencing very random, 10-30 second blackouts from the new fixture.

The blackouts are very graceful, almost as if they are being dimmed back and forth, they last 5-30 seconds and they happen a few times in the course of the evening (the only time the light is on and I noticed the behavior)

At first I figure it was a bad connection at the fixture, but no matter how hard I try to shake the fixture, even when the blackout is occurring, nothing changes. The fixture was not easy to put in, so the whole point of this ask is to figure out if there is anything to do before I take the fixture down.

Second I figured it was a bad dimmer, so I swapped that out. No change.

Now I do not know what to do, here is some other pertinent info:

Old house, original wiring
Incandescent fixture with two small "peanut" globes, the kind with two small stiff wires where it connects.
Both lamps dim when this occurs.

Any thoughts appreciated.

Henry

BF laid off! Can't hire electircian, plenty of time no money.

stormygrey — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 21:53:12 -0800

Wiring question: What is this crazy non-standard switch I need? I have a hall with three switches. One for the attic, one for the closet, and one for the hall. The power in for all three comes into the one that is supposed to control the attic light. It was a really old switch and the toggle basically crumpled.

We tried to rewire it and now, either the hall and the closet or on or the attic is, but they are never both off. So we basically need a switch that allows the two other toggle switches to be on continously (unless their respective toggles are moved) while keeping the circuit to the attic light completely seperate. Does that make sense? No one at Ace, Depot or wherever thinks they can help and said we would have to go to a specialty lighting store, but they weren't sure either.

There is a black wire that is the "in" a black wire that is the attic wire, a green for the hall, and a white for the closet. If it helps, this line was orginally for the whole house fan.

This is the kind of thing that is so freakin hard to google.

Spiral-shaped vertical cable conduit

mendel — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 13:32:30 -0800

Help me find this spirally alternative to jiffy poles for office wiring. I'm about to have a new office wired for network, voice and power, and some of the clusters of desks are islands, not near a wall. Usually you'd run cables to those using jiffy poles, those hollow poles that go up to the ceiling and have power and network jacks at the bottom.

But a while ago, on some design blog, I saw photos of an office that had some sort of plastic coil to run the cabling through. It looked like a spiral hose or like the tubing they use at quick oil change places, and for all I know it might have been exactly that.

I can't remember where I saw it, but I'd like to investigate that for the new office. Does anyone know of something like this, or know where I might have seen it?

21st century technology in a 1960s house(hold).

hellogoodbye — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 07:39:21 -0800

Our house has no coaxial cable installed... but I want FiOS. Do I need to get something done before Verizon comes? How much will it cost? I have FINALLY convinced my mom to switch from dialup to wireless.
I just ordered a beautiful LCD tv.

Our house, which is beaten up and old (but at least we own it), has only been hooked up to regular cable once. Our former tenant had cable in our back bedroom on the bottom floor, but my mom was so convinced that she didn't NEED cable (and that we would never WANT it), that she had someone come and tear that cable out. That is the only place coaxial cable has ever been.

I want to hook up the new tv in our family room on the same floor as that bedroom. It'd also be nice to hook up the 19" LCD I just bought for mom in her bedroom on the third floor, but not essential.

The Verizon site says they do yaddayadda with that box on the outside of the house, but then use the existing coaxial cable inside the house. I've found some sort of relevant descriptions via Google, but nothing that directly addresses my situation. Sooo, do I need to get someone else to install coaxial before Verizon comes? (I have not yet ordered the service.) What does that entail (something about in the walls and drilling a hole in the wall, that much I know)? Or will they be able to do it for a fee? Can I convince them not to charge me?

Please guide me. I'll give you more info if necessary.

(FYI, in case it matters, my area goes with Cox for regular cable, not Comcast, and Cox prices for TV/Internet services are not to my liking.)

Can't get my furnace to run on a generator

inthe80s — Sat, 13 Dec 2008 16:52:02 -0800

I've tried two different generators, but still can't get my oil burning furnace to power up. Detail inside post I'm in day two of what promises to be a week long power outage. The first generator was several years old 2KW and had a plugged carboratuer, I fixed it and got it running. It didn't run the furnace. Now I've got a brand new 6KW generator with several 20 amp circuits on it and I'm trying to run a oil furnace, which runs on a 110 15amp circuit. I have a proper generator panel hookup that several years ago did run my previous furnace fine. Both generators produced the following symptoms.

When I turn on the furnace, there's a clicking/buzzing noise for about 20 seconds, and then I get flame. It runs for a minute and shuts down. The blower never spins up to full power, it barely spins at all. The furnace then shuts down after a couple minutes due to an overheat (since the heat never gets moved by the weak powered fan blower)

I think the blower motor could have gotten taken out by a power spike when the power went down. The motor was replaced about 3 years earlier due it burning out before, and the tech replaced it with a bigger motor. I tried wiring it to a slower speed, but it didn't appear to work.

Is there anything else it could be? It should be enough power, though it also acts like it's not.

I'm not sure I should call the oil company out to service it if I'm trying to run it on a generator (they're probably swamped with calls anyways due to the massive problems here in the Northeast). No idea where I could even get a replacement motor before Monday in Central Mass either.

Help me wire a light fixture.

fake — Sun, 07 Dec 2008 10:18:33 -0800

AC Wiring question! I have a ceiling mounted light fixture. It does not work. Perhaps you can help me.

Details:

The wiring in my building is the old cloth covered wire. It is not marked for polarity.

The fixture itself has a black and white wire, as well as a ground wire. Only the black and white are hooked up to anything. They are connected to the cloth-covered wire with wire nuts.

One wire, when connected to ground, measures 120v. The other wire gives nothing.

I have tested the connection between the fixture and the switch. The switch is connected to the wire which measures 0v, and the switch works fine.

The wire which shows 120v when measured relative to ground is always on regardless of switch position.

How do I wire this thing properly, so that the switch actually turns on the light?