stray electricity?

[bronco300]

lol...awesome...so now that we have this answer, can someone explain how to go about finding the wire and the things i need to do...sorry, not very smart when it comes to this stuff.

 

[saltfan]

Is your lighting system all plastic? If it is, your going to have to find a metal point on the lighting somewhere, maybe on both sides, and connect a wire to it or them there, if the lighting is all metal then you just need one wire. Take that wire from the light point A and now you can screw it into the outlet box, because the outlet box is metal and is grounded, this will ground your equipment, and keep the current from running around. You don't need a GFCI (Ground Fault Circuit Interupt ) in order to ground the light, those are just water safety outlets, like if you have all your stuff plugged into a surge protector, that will act as the same if something goes haywire. But if you don't have a surge protector, then I would have a GFCI installed to plug those things into, other than a surge protector or both, but its not necessary for both.

 

[bronco300]

my lighting is all metal, so i just take any wire, or is there a specific wire in the system that i need to find?

 

[saltfan]

It doesn't matter where at this point you put the grounding wire at on the light, if its all metal. The voltage is running all around the metal fixture, just attach a wire to the fixture then to the screw on the outlet, and your good to go.

 

[rrundle77]

One last thing, I had some issues w/ one of my outlets the ground was broken at the junction box. If the problem persists after you install the ground wire look to the outlet as the source of your problem. You can buy a tester at home depot for about 5 bucks

 

[pfitz44]

Originally Posted by Bronco300
my lighting is all metal, so i just take any wire, or is there a specific wire in the system that i need to find?
Look were the plug wire comes into the metal enclosure. There shoul dbe three wires, white, black, and one with no insulation. The one with no insulation is your grounding wire. You will need to connect this to the enclosure somehow. Solder, screw, theres pleanty of ways to do this....
Use a AWG 14 or 16
HTH
Fitzy

 

[bouraganes]

I've had a similar problem with lighting before- check all your wiring for nicks or other damage- my fixture was hood mounted and the wiring tended to rub on the wooden frame everytime I opened it- also make sure you don't have any water dripping or spraying on your power bar (or any other connections).