Replacing an outlet with white black and red wires with a usb outlet with 2 terminals

receptaclereplacement

I have 2 close by outlets that I tried to replace with a new usb outlet. The old outlets have white Black a red wires but the usb outlets have only two terminals. I replaced the first one, and put the red and the Black together in one terminals (hot) and the white on the other side. The first outlet works fine. I did the same with the second outlet but this one doesn’t work at all. Seems like it gets no juice. Any suggestions? enter image description hereenter image description hereenter image description here

Best Answer

Here's what's gonna getcha with these types of sockets

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That.

On a normal receptacle, that "Tab" decides whether those two screws are

  • merely a convenient splicing block to allow two wires to be spliced together with both sockets in one big happy splice, or
  • provide separation of the two sockets so they can be separately controlled. This is typically done a) because one socket is controlled by a light switch, or b) because it is a multi-wire branch circuit with each socket on a separate leg of power, so two high-power appliances can be plugged in here.

USB receptacles (least, the ones I am aware of) do not support this separation of sockets. Nor do GFCI or any other specialty kind of receptacle, by the way.

If the tab is broken off, and you aren't wise to that and just connect the two wires together on the USB socket, then either a) the light switch will stop working, or b) there will be a loud BANG! and a breaker trip.

In either case, you have to decide which single wire you want both sockets to be powered from, and it either a) decides whether the all the sockets (USB too) are switched by the light switch or not, or b) either hot will suffice.

However, either way, the other now-orphaned wire must be capped and insulated.