I'm trying to install a pendant light to my halo style track fixture. I purchased a pendant light from ikea and an adapter for the track light system. The name of the pendant is the nymane and I purchased a Nora lighting NT368 adapter. My question centers around the wiring of the pendant into the adapter. In the cable that attaches to the ceiling, there is only a live and neutral wire while the ground is attached to the mount. In the adapter, there is a live, neutral and ground wiring. Is there any way that I could attach the pendant without the ground and still not cause any safety issues or is it possible to just leave the wiring of the ground our altogether?
Electrical – Pendant Light on Track Light System
electrical
Related Solutions
The multimeter may be off trying to accurately measure an AC voltage that ends up looking like chopped AC cycles.
There is a good possibility though that no load on a triac switch of the dimmer could look like an AC waveform of full voltage to the relatively high impedance of the multimeter input if the dimmer design has a resistor/capacitor snubber circuit across the triac. The diagram below shows the typical snubber configuration used (R2 and C2). R2 is commonly a resistor of a couple hundred ohms in series with the capacitor. When the triac is OFF the snubber circuit will be able to pass the AC waveform through when a meter with an typical input impedance of 20K to 50K ohms is used across the open lamp terminals.
A pendant light needs 4 wires:
- Hot
- Neutral
- Ground for the dangling lamp
- Ground for the box cover
Two of them go to metal contact points in the bulb socket. If one of them is easier to touch than the other, that should be neutral.
Honestly, I'd say if the accompanying documentation or online docs do not tell how to hook it up, then it goes back to the store/into the trash. I would question the UL or CE listing, as I doubt they'd list a fixture with no clear way to hook it up. I can only imagine they expect a qualified electrician to beep it out. Well, digital voltmeters are $10 at Sears if cost is a factor - for a world-class one, Fluke.
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Best Answer
If the pendant fixture has a metal connection to that plate under normal installation, then I would recommend adding a wire somewhere inside the fixture to connect with the ground wire in the adapter. If, however, the pendant is designed to hang purely from that 2-wire cable, then clearly the fixture doesn't need to be grounded, so just attach hot and neutral to the adapter.