Lighting ckt

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mstrlucky74

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Simply put for 120v lighting that have 1p 20 switches...you can either land the circuit at the light switch and bring switch leg up or land the circuit in the ceiling, correct? Thats the way I've been told....either circuit in box in ceiling or at the switch. What determines which what you wire it I'm not entirely clear. Thx

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Personal preference, but generally, I prefer to feed at the switch. Otherwise, your switch loop needs to include the neutral. Black hot, red switched, white for dimmers and remotes that need them. Some use 3-conductor either way.
 
LarryFine said:
Personal preference, but generally, I prefer to feed at the switch. Otherwise, your switch loop needs to include the neutral. Black hot, red switched, white for dimmers and remotes that need them. Some use 3-conductor either way.
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So if your feed is run to a ceiling box and not the switch then 12/2 from switch(non dimmer) to light would be fine??

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mstrlucky74 said:
So if your feed is run to a ceiling box and not the switch then 12/2 from switch(non dimmer) to light would be fine??
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Electrically, yes: feed hot to switch on white, return to load on black.

Recent codes added re-coloring the white, and having a neutral at the switch, most easily done by using 3-conductor cable instead of 2-conductor as I described above.

20-amp circuit, apparently.
 
mstrlucky74 said:
So if your feed is run to a ceiling box and not the switch then 12/2 from switch(non dimmer) to light would be fine??
Click to expand...

If you're using MC cable then as Larry stated you'll need a neutral at the switch. If it's in a raceway like EMT then no neutral required for a regular toggle switch.
 
LarryFine said:
Electrically, yes: feed hot to switch on white, return to load on black.

Recent codes added re-coloring the white, and having a neutral at the switch, most easily done by using 3-conductor cable instead of 2-conductor as I described above.

20-amp circuit, apparently.
Click to expand...
Sorry I don't follow. 12/2 has the neutral. Why is 12/3. You'd have to recolor the neutral for 12/2?

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mstrlucky74 said:
Sorry I don't follow. 12/2 has the neutral. Why is 12/3. You'd have to recolor the neutral for 12/2?

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Click to expand...

You should bring a neutral to the switch box in case they want to add a dimmer or occupancy sensor in the future, which might require a neutral connection for the internal electronics.
Run 12/3 from the ceiling box, and use the black as the hot feed to the switch, and the red as the switch leg to the ceiling box. Just cap off the neutral in the box, as you won't need it for the toggle switch.
 
Take a look at 404.2(C). It addresses a lot of what we are discussing.
 
To add to this thread and the one Augie closed:

A white wire only becomes a neutral when it has been connected as such; otherwise, it's merely a wire that happens to have white insulation. The extensive presumption that a white wire is always a grounded conductor is why the code evolved to require it be re-colored whenever used as a non-grounded conductor.

When BX was popular, it was common to supply the ceiling box, and feed receptacles and the switch loop from that box, so you'd have several whites with a light pigtail, several blacks with one white, and the return black for just the light. The blacks-and-one-white joint would normally never be disturbed in the future.

Any experienced electrician would recognize every connection he might encounter (as long as the wiring was done correctly), but a DIYer or handyman may expect every white wire to be grounded, so the code has accommodated them. Plus, electronic controls weren't around then; code evolves as equipment does.
 
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