I'm installing 3 LED shop lights in my basement workshop. I've already run new 12/2 NM-B wire to a few junctions and switches, per light. The attached picture is an example of the final splice I need to make.
The cables that come out of the product (both need powered) are quite short and so don't lend themselves to being pulled into a junction box. It may look like there's just enough slack to mount a junction box right on the joist in the picture, but not all of the lights are mounted such that their wires are that close to a joist.
The fluorescent shop lights I'm replacing simply pulled the 12/2 directly into the light enclosure, but these LED lights have no room for that.
Would this be an acceptable place to use the (Tyco, etc.) NM cable splices mentioned in the top answer here? If not, what's the best solution?
Thanks,
== Matt
More pictures by request:
Full fixture without the diffuser/cover:
Best Answer
What you want is a ceiling box that uses an old-work brace
If you have ever been in a hardware/home-improvement store and wondered why some of the boxes had what looked like a long metal brace attached to them, like so (picture for illustration only):
wonder no further. That brace is meant to go between adjacent ceiling joists and support both the box and a fixture attached to the box, and the box can be adjusted to position it in the joist bay. The fixture itself then acts as the cover for the box, as per NEC 314.25 and 410.22.
(Trying to support a box using a lighting fixture would likely be seen as a NEC 314.23 violation -- there is no subsection of 314.23 that allows for that.)