Lighting – Why won’t the recessed lights illuminate when they have power

recessed-lighting

I recently installed 7 recessed can lights in my basement that are powered by 3 way light switches. After I hooked up the power to the 2 switches the first light in the series will illuminate but the others will not. I have tested each light fixture and they all have power coming into them. I have tried to change out the LED lights I bought at Home Depot and they still will not work (I moved the same lights to another location and they work just fine). Any suggestions on why the other lights will not illuminate? Thanks

Best Answer

Evidence would suggest there is a wiring error. Recheck the wiring and all the connections - something is not connected, or is connected incorrectly.

Since you claim to have tested that there is power to all the fixtures, one of two things is probably the case:

  1. There is a high resistance connection which allows you to see voltage with a tester, but which causes the voltage to drop drastically as soon as a load is applied.
  2. You have managed to get both hot and neutral hot, so voltage is present, but there's no voltage across the devices, as they are connected to hot on both sides.

As you might imagine, it's difficult to troubleshoot these things from afar. Doublecheck everything.

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