What wiring codes say about these wires?

[Joseph]

I need to tap some electrical in an underground garage where my car is. There are no wall outlet whatsoever and sometimes I need to plug in some hand tools. Anyway, I found this box hanging off the low ceiling, I opened and saw thew 5 wires, 4 wiht shield and 1 just barecopper(ground). Can someone in the know please tell me which of these wires I can splice into to get teh equivalent household voltage of 120V, I plan to add a wall socket to it. I promise I will be careful, where gloves etc. Thx

[joshers17]

wow....i am unsure if you are qualified to perform this job...wearing gloves does not protect you from shock, or burning your garage down. please seek qualified help. I dont want to see anyone getting hurt and this operation would not be very expensive for a qualified electrician to do.

[Joseph Meehan]

Sorry, but you need to know a lot more than it appears you know to do that job. We have no way of knowing what those wires are from your description.

Note: you need more than just some wires that will give you 120V, but you need wires that are on a circuit that can handle the additional load you might be adding. I suggest a pro for his job.

[3G]

get a tester and see if anything is live if so...........................call electrician.

[RBM]

You don't necessarily have a 120 volt feed in the box, even though you probably have live wires. There are a number of possibilities, that could cause problems if you tap into these wires, or do so incorrectly. Find someone with some experience, and can determine what you have in the box. If you do have a 120 volt "feed", installing a GFCI outlet is an easy enough thing to do

[HeyBub]

You've hit a surveillance camera feed.

[Terry]

It is hard to tell from here, but if the cable is shielded, it sounds like you have some low voltage stuff. Maybe for a phone, doorbell, or security. This wire is usually so small that you can bend it with your finger. You will not be able to use it for power.

[Toller]

Nobody called you a troll! Good going.

[RicodJour]

By shielded the OP means jacketed. Plastic encased as opposed to bare copper.

R

[Robert Allison]

The only wires you can deal with here are the pink and the orange/purple/yellow striped wires. DO NOT TOUCH ANY OF THE OTHERS!

Twist the pink and the striped wires into a figure eight coupler and then lead off of that for your outlet.

REMEMBER NOT TO TOUCH ANY WIRES OF ANY OTHER COLORS!

If any of these instructions are confusing, then I would suggest a professional electrician as this can be quite dangerous for those with feeble electrical skills or minds.

[Bennett Price]

Is there lighting? If incandescent, just get a screw-in adapter. If fluorescent, open up the fixture and check on the ballast that it's

120 volts. Turn off the light at the circuit breaker and then add your wires.

Joseph wrote:

[EXT]

This is an underground garage. Which means it is probably in an apartment building or condo development. These are not your wires to touch, they belong to the building. They could be for anything such as lighting, etc. They probably are at the NEC limit for capacity. You cannot just start adding outlets and plugging in tools. Your description is so poor, some words misspelt so bad that I don't know what you are saying. Your knowledge of wiring seems to be as bad as your spelling. Leave well enough alone. Don't touch anything. You'll live longer.

[Joseph]

I need to tap some electrical in an underground garage where my car

>is. There are no wall outlet whatsoever and sometimes I need to plug >in some hand tools. Anyway, I found this box hanging off the low >ceiling, I opened and saw thew 5 wires, 4 wiht shield and 1 just >barecopper(ground). Can someone in the know please tell me which of >these wires I can splice into to get teh equivalent household voltage >of 120V, I plan to add a wall socket to it. I promise I will be >careful, where gloves etc. Thx

I forgot to mention, here are the pictures of the wires, I suspect Red=120V and black=Ground, white=Neutral? What the other one for? I have auto-ranging digital multimeter that can do AC measurements. I should just measure across Red & Black to see what I get?

[DanG]

Joseph,

As others have said, it sounds like your knowledge level might be inadequate for the task at hand.

Your meter will probably show you 220V between red and black. Each of them is probably 110V. Black is NOT ground in utility wiring - it is in automotive DC (perhaps explains your confusion). White should be neutral, red should be 110 and black should be

110. The bare copper is ground. This sounds like commercial wiring - NOT Romex. BE CAREFUL, it may be 3 phase with a high leg for lighting, you will destroy whatever you hook to it. Tapping into an existing circuit without having any idea what it is feeding, where it is coming from, and how it is being used is NOT smart. If you are dealing with a receptacle or lighting circuit that is not critical or serving a designated circuit, the idea will probably work. You really need to know the FROM and the TO, before you proceed.

[clifto]

Ground is green. From an old article title, "black is hot and white is not (and vice is often versa)". I never found rules for other colors, but in my experience I've found a lot of switched hot wires used red.

[hallerb]

I could do that BUT you have no idea who will pay for the power, what breaker somewhere it on, it may not have power at all. you might cause troubles for others, its likely a 220V line.

What tools will you be sing in the garage?

[Terry]

Do you have 3 phase power? er.....sorry Do you know where your panel is? Do you know what a panel is?

[aemeijers]

I could do that BUT you have no idea who will pay for the power, what breaker somewhere it on, it may not have power at all. you might cause troubles for others, its likely a 220V line.

What tools will you be sing in the garage?

If you are renting the garage space, do NOT mess with the wiring without talking to landlord. The already-mentioned safety issues aside, landlords tend to get real pissed off when stuff like that happens. Like considering it a lease-breaker, and putting your ass and/or car on the street, if the garage is part of an apartment lease. If you have a nice landlord, and ask real nice, they may have an actual electrician run an outlet as a courtesy to you and any other tenants, but just as likely their insurance agent will be happier if they don't, so some fool doesn't leave a space heater running while he tracks down that fuel line leak in January.

aem sends...

[mm]

Isn't it funhy? Use to be, hand tools were the tools one couldn't plug in.

[Joseph]

HI DanG, I will probably back out from this plan seeing that it might be dangerous. By the way, you mentioned 3-phase with high leg. What did you mean by this? I am pretty certain these are used for the fluorescent lamps, because the other wires and panels are hooked up to fluorescent ones. I don't know why this one is just lying around, unhooked, maybe its for future expansions? I had wanted to hook it up so I can use a vacuum cleaner and such. Maybe I opt to go with a cordless vacuum cleaner and scrap this plan since its obviously too involved.