Recently bought a house that's about 40 years old. The previous owner was clearly very fond of doing the wiring himself and has left me some idiosyncrasies to work out. One is this box in one of my bedrooms. No idea what it is, or is supposed to do but I see extra wires coming straight out of the sheet rock on the bottom of it. Can anyone tell me what it is?
Electrical – Can anyone tell me what this little white box on the outlet is
electricalsocketwiring
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That is a in-sure push-in wire connector. It's spring-loaded. To remove it, pull while twisting. The full spec sheets on them are at http://www.idealindustries.com/prodDetail.do?prodId=in-sure&div=0&l1=push-in , and DIY.SE did a blog entry on them as well at http://diy.blogoverflow.com/2012/01/tool-review-ideal-in-sure-push-in-wire-connectors/
The extra brass colored box is a transformer for a low voltage system, probably a doorbell. One wire on the outside probably goes to the push button and the other to the chime. It could be some other low voltage device, doesn't really matter, it's definitely a transformer. The green wire appears to be a site installed modification to ensure proper grounding. The smaller black wires are for 120v power. One to house black, the other to house white. Which goes to which does not matter.
To install a lamp base with a pull switch, you need short lengths of white and black wires with solid copper conductors the same gauge as the house wiring. Connect the black one to the brass screw of the base and the other end to the other house black wires and one of the transformer blacks. Connect the white one to the silver screw and the other end to the white house wires with the other transformer black.
If the base has a green and/or hex shaped grounding screw, it is connected to the other grounding wires with either green insulated or bare copper wire. Since these sort of bases are usually non-metallic, there's usually no grounding screw. But if there is one, it needs to be connected.
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Best Answer
Conveniently, it still had the UPC barcode label and you captured it quite clearly in the picture.
A search at upcdatabase.com shows that it is:
A Google Search for that UPC brings up a number of hits, including on at Parts Express that shows the following specs:
Universal UB1640W 16.5 VAC 40 VA Plug-In Wall Transformer
So, it appears to be a low voltage 16.5 VAC transformer that is (or at least was) a part of a home security system. Looks like the screw on top is meant to screw into the outlet for semi-permanent installation.
Of course, it's possible that it was re-purposed for something else like low voltage lighting, a doorbell, or who knows what it may be used for.