Help with hardwiring rope lights (1 Viewer)

[Jay Mitchosky]

Picked up my rope lights this week and all but one string will be hardwired to electrical rather than using the standard plug. I had a cheap "sacrificial" strand to inspect, and unsheathed a chunk of the roughed in wire in my theater. Here they are:



I'm pretty sure I can figure out white-to-white and black-to-black. However, the wire roughed in throughout my theater has an additional ground with no partner in the rope strand. How does this fit into the equation?

 

[Wayne A. Pflughaupt]

Jay,

When it’s used, a ground lead ends up attached to the metal chassis of an electrical component. The idea is that if the hot lead ever gets loose internally and touches the chassis, it will cause the breaker to trip. If there was no ground and you touched the chassis, you might become the path to ground and get shocked.

Since there is no metal chassis with rope lighting, you don’t need to worry about the ground lead in this situation.

Regards,
Wayne A. Pflughaupt

 

[Jay Mitchosky]

So in other words just let it dangle? Or cut away? That's simple enough.

 

[Wayne A. Pflughaupt]

Let it dangle. That way it'll be there should it ever be needed in the future.

 

[Jay Mitchosky]

And presumably all I do is cut the plug off the rope light and expose the bare wires as I did with my dummy?

 

[Tony Loewen]

you got it.

 

[Wayne A. Pflughaupt]

Connections should be with standard electrician’s wire nuts. It looks like your Romex is 14ga, so the orange ones will do nicely. The picture of the Romex shows the leads stripped about right. Trim the rope light’s stripped leads a little shorter so that they’re about time-and-a half those of the Romex and you’ll be in business.

Regards,
Wayne A. Pflughaupt

 

[Jay Mitchosky]

Groovy.