Which wires where????


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Old 08-08-10, 12:42 PM
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Which wires where????

I decided to replace a light fixture with a bigger one, so I needed to move the junction box over a bit. Instead of taping the wires to identify which went where, I colored them with markers, but by the time I got things moved over, the colors had rubbed off. Crap! Now I have 3 each of white and black wires, and I'm not sure which wires should belong to each other. I know there were:
- 3 wire nutted together
- 2 nutted together along with one fixture wire
- 1 (black, I think) nutted to the other fixture wire

There is a light switch for the fixture and several plug ins on that particular breaker, and I've identified my supply wire, but I'm at a loss as to which goes where. Any help someone can give me to get me on the right track would be GREATLY APPRECIATED!
 
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Old 08-08-10, 01:35 PM
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Welcome to the forums! You didn't extend the wires, did 'ya? Just moved the box. You have a switch loop, which means one of the white/black wire combinations in a cable go to the switch. The other two blacks and the white to the switch loop will be capped together. The two whites along with the neutral from your fixture will be capped together, and the black from the switch will be capped to the black of the fixture.
NOW, you need to identify them. Do you have a non contact detector or a multimeter? Let us know so we can proceed to determine which wires go to which bundle.
 
 

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