[phendyr]

Hey folks, I've got a weird one and not sure what to do, I appreciate anyone's time to offer suggestions.

my bedroom had a ceiling fan with 4 lights that I'm replacing with a basic 2-socket ceiling light. The original lights were controlled by a basic single flip switch on the wall.

When I removed the ceiling fan, there is a black, white, red and ground wires. I've replaced several lights in the house with the same 2-socket that I'm putting up here, which worked just fine - blacks to black, white to whites, ground with ground - easy peezy.

I figured the red wire was for the fan's own switch - at first I just terminated the wire - but when I did that, the light stayed on constantly and the wall switch does nothing.

I admit I tried a little electrical roulette and tried tying it into the black and the white - in both cases the light was then dead.

What should I do with this wire?

 

[Jim Port]

Fixture black to ceiling red.

When you spliced the ceiling black and white together you probably tripped the breaker.

 

[phendyr]

I didn't try black to white, only black to blacks and white to whites. I've put in 5 other of this same light, but none of the other installations have a red wire. The only time I tripped the fuse is when I tried for the helluvit putting red to ground and flipped the switch.

I don't understand why having the red wire isolated, makes the light on constantly... should I maybe try replacing the ceiling black with the red, connecting to the light fixture blacks?

### Yup, that's it, they swapped the wires... red was the 'black' I needed.


sigh. crisis averted.

 

[joed]

What you have there is constant power(black) for the fan and switched power(red) for the light.