I can see it. It's partially hidden, but like you said, just knowing that it's a light, seeing a black and a green, you immediately think where is the white and then it's not hard to spot.
Bottom line on this whole thing is that to do this 100% absolutely code compliant would be a real pain in the ass. I could certainly live with running the wire into the receptacle box and connecting it there. What would an inspector say? IDK, but they have discretion and I don't see any real safety issue as long as it's done in a reasonable way. For example, what happens when an electrician runs a new cable for a wall receptacle? Do they punch holes everywhere in the wall to meet the reqt that it be stapled along it's length, stapled within 12" of the new box, etc? Or do they drill a hole in the top or bottom plate, cut a hole for a box and just snake the cable? If you had to strictly follow every last code detail, regardless of the circumstances, it sure would make for a lot of extra work.
This is from a "This Old House" installation. Is it code to have the Romex come out the wall and left exposed as shown? Maybe a length of wiremold to cover the Romex would work.
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I've removed the short cord that comes with shop lights and ran Romex directly into the housing, secured with a Romex connector. This allowed me to wire them into a lighting circuit without have to put a receptacle in the ceiling near each one. Perhaps that is a viable solution for Car13.
Assuming the cord that is on the LED fixture is not code compliant to be run inside a wall, replacing it with Romex might work. Where he sources the power from is up to him. Properly, from a lighting circuit, or improperly, from a counter receptacle box. I realize that I am talking from both sides by saying he shouldn't run the existing cord inside the wall but "accepting" a connection to the counter receptacle circuit. It's just that running the existing cord through the wall makes me very uncomfortable.
I confirm that the LED panel has 3 wires. White, Black, Green. I was going to call them "plus, minus, and ground", but I wasn't sure if that's correct and I didn't want to confuse everyone more.
I already got my electrical inspection passed, so I'm not super concerned about being code compliant. But I do want this to be safe for me and everyone else in my building.
I guess a different way of asking my question would be, How can I safely wire this LED panel to that 20A outlet on the left, without having to attach a plug from the outside? And is there more information that is lacking in my description?
As you may have gleaned from this thread, the correct terminology is:
Black - Hot White - Neutral Green - Ground
OK, here's where things get a little touchy. Please don't take this the wrong way. After all, you did say: "I do want this to be safe for me and everyone else in my building."
You don't know what to call the wires which tells me that you haven't spent much time working with household electrical wiring. You passed the inspection so now you don't mind going off the reservation. Both of those things concern me. Are you sure that you are the right person to be attempting this installation? Do you have friends that have done house wiring before that would be willing to help/teach you how to do this safely?
Keep in mind that we are all pretty sure that using that receptacle box in the first place is not code compliant, so anything else that you do may only make matters worse.
One of my concerns is that if we just tell you to drill a hole in the wall and fish that cord into the receptacle box and use wire nuts to match the wires colors by color, are you going to be able to do that safely? Will you know if the box is so over crowded that you are so out of code that it is now unsafe? Do you know how to safely attach stranded wire to solid wire? Do you know how to safely secure the wire to the box? (You might recall from my previous posts that I'm not even sure that it is code (or even safe) to run that cord inside a wall and into a junction box.
If you indeed want to tackle this job, we might be able to tell you the generic steps to get the wiring done, but without actually seeing the inside of that box, we can't be specific. If they used wire nuts and pigtails, adding a wire would be done one way (assuming there is room). If they back-clamped the wires into the receptacle, it will need to be done in a different way. If there is some sort of shared neutral (I doubt it) then that adds another element. All I am trying to say is that it all depends on how that receptacle box is wired.
At the risk of sounding tedious, I really think you need to determine if that cord should even be run inside the wall. If not, then you are going to have figure out how to get your source wires into a junction box and then figure out how to get that cord (safely) into the junction box. As I mentioned in an earlier post, it might be OK to remove that cord and use Romex as shown here:
Thanks everyone. Continued thanks for all the feedback and comments. If the right person is someone who has all the answers then I'm not the right person I guess. But, I'm not an incapable person either.
If there's no safe way to do this, then I'm totally ok skipping the lights. But what would you guys do? Code-compliant or nothing? Or wire to the outlet?
To answer DerbyDad03's concerns:
[DD03] One of my concerns is that if we just tell you to drill a hole in the wall and fish that cord into the receptacle box and use wire nuts to match the wires colors by color, are you going to be able to do that safely? [C13] Yes, I can confidently do that. I tested it it "outside" the wall to check functionality and overall lighting effect of the LED panel.
[DD03] Will you know if the box is so over crowded that you are so out of code that it is now unsafe? [C13] I don't know. I'd have to look it up. Any advice here?
[DD03] Do you know how to safely attach stranded wire to solid wire? [C13] Yes, I've done that before. Wire nuts, plus add a bit extra length to the stranded wire? Or wrap some stranded wire around the solid wire before the nut?
[DD03] Do you know how to safely secure the wire to the box? (You might recall from my previous posts that I'm not even sure that it is code (or even safe) to run that cord inside a wall and into a junction box. [C13] I'd have to look this up too to check. I was going to copy the securing nut/grommet I see on other boxes.
This is true. It also convinces me that the existing cord cannot be used to hard wire the fixture into a junction box. If he wants it hard wired, he is going to have to upsize that cord to match the requirements of the circuit.
Please see the other posts related to the fact that you have a 20A circuit.
The cord on the fixture is not 12g, so I don't believe that it can be brought into the box, which it probably shouldn't be anyway because it is probably not code to wire the fixture into an counter receptacle circuit.
This is what I was trying to say earlier. You are already going off the reservation by using the receptacle box. Now you have wire size issues and a wire type that probably shouldn't be in the wall anyway.
You want it to be safe for you and everyone else in the building, yet it appears that you will have at least 3 code violations if you continue down your current path. Forget the receptacle box and do it right.
1) Connect the supplied cable to a 12-gauge cable (Romex?) outside of the wall and tuck both cables under the cabinet and behind the LED panel. So the entire cable from the LED panel and some length of the 12-gauge cable would be outside the wall.
2) Route the 12-gauge cable in the wall through the junction box.
3) Secure the 12-gauge cable to the junction box.
Alternatively, what would be the right way to do it?
An inspector would say you can't use cords inside the wall, you can't connect an 18 ga wire to a 15 or 20a circuit unless it is part of a fixture connected in a listed canopy and all wires connected to a box must exit through a listed connector, just as a start, based on some of the ideas I have seen here. He should mount a box, with a receptacle in it, perhaps inside a cabinet to keep mama happy and put a plug on that cord
Has anybody asked what the installation instructions say?
Another possible solution is to find a different type of light that is easier to deal with, maybe separate transformer, that could be plugged in somewhere, under sink outlet maybe, etc?
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