[yummy mummy]

I am putting in a new light fixture and I would like to ask a question about the ground wire that is on it.

The ground wire is silver in colour and at the tip of it there is an attachment to it that is gold in colour and is a small little ring.

In my circuit box at the ceiling I have all the ground wires together, and I would like to know how I would treat this silver wire with the small little ring at the tip?


Thanks.

 

[rjniles]

I am putting in a new light fixture and I would like to ask a question about the ground wire that is on it.

The ground wire is silver in colour and at the tip of it there is an attachment to it that is gold in colour and is a small little ring.

In my circuit box at the ceiling I have all the ground wires together, and I would like to know how I would treat this silver wire with the small little ring at the tip?


Thanks.

Usually the fixture strap (the bracket that mounts to the outlet box) will have a green screw in it, place the ring under the screw and connect the ground wire(s) to the screw and tighten.

 

[yummy mummy]

Usually the fixture strap (the bracket that mounts to the outlet box) will have a green screw in it, place the ring under the screw and connect the ground wire(s) to the screw and tighten.

Yes, it does have the green ground screw on the bracket attachment.
Does that mean that I only attach the ground to the screw on the bracket attachment only? I don't worry about the other grounds in the box?

 

[adpanko]

Yes, it does have the green ground screw on the bracket attachment.
Does that mean that I only attach the ground to the screw on the bracket attachment only? I don't worry about the other grounds in the box?

No, all of the grounds coming into that box need to be somehow connected to the ground screw in that box. So you have to attached the little ring from the ground on your light fixture to the green screw in the box. And you also need to pigtail off another wire from the rest of the grounds to that green screw.

 

[rjniles]

Yes, it does have the green ground screw on the bracket attachment.
Does that mean that I only attach the ground to the screw on the bracket attachment only? I don't worry about the other grounds in the box?

Connect the bundled ground wires (with a pigtail) to the fixture strap along with the fixture ground. If you have a metal box and the grounds are connected to the box, only connect the fixture ground to the strap.

 

[yummy mummy]

The grounds that are in the box are all bundled together and grounded in the box. The box is metal.

So could I just put the ground from the fixture to the green screw on the bracket only?

Also, I have another fixture that has a brass wire (ground) that has no little circle attached to it. With this fixture would I wrap the ground around the green screw attached to the bracket and then bring it up and attach it to the bundle of grounds in the metal box?

 

[rjniles]

The grounds that are in the box are all bundled together and grounded in the box. The box is metal.

So could I just put the ground from the fixture to the green screw on the bracket only?

Also, I have another fixture that has a brass wire (ground) that has no little circle attached to it. With this fixture would I wrap the ground around the green screw attached to the bracket and then bring it up and attach it to the bundle of grounds in the metal box?

That is fine on the first fixture.

Second fixture
Wrap the wire around the screw and tighten. No need to do anything else as long as the grounds are connected to a metal box.

What you need to get done is insure you have continuity between the ground wires and the fixture ground. Either thru the metal box or by direct connection.

 

[yummy mummy]

Thank you very much for your help rjniles.

I will do that.

 

[n0c7]

I went over many different ways of dealing with these those fixture straps with the author of Electrical Code Simplified. I had the same idea as you yummy mummy - since the box was already grounded and was metal, I could simply mount the strap to the metal box and wrap the fixture ground to the green screw. I was told this more often than not fails inspection because alot of times the metal box is not flush with the surface(eg. drywall) causing a poor ground connection with the fixture.

I was told three methods that would work the best as of 2008 code(these all assume you have left the ground wires long enough to work with):

1) Assuming you have two cables with two ground wires entering the box, wire nut these two together and connect one of the ground wires to one ground screw in the box. Run the fixture ground to the second ground screw in the box and disregard the green screw on the strap.

2) Assuming once again you have two cables with two ground wires entering the box, wire nut these two together along with the fixture ground. Run a pigtail from this wire nut bundle to the green screw. Connect one of the solid ground wires to one ground screw in the box.

3) Assuming once again you have two cables with two ground wires entering the box, connect each ground wire to its own ground screw in the box. Wire nut them together along with the fixture ground. I use this method the most, especially on boxes with only one cable entering.

The whole point is that you want to be able to remove the fixture without disturbing the grounding portion of the circuit in the event that you remove the fixture live.

There are many other methods that will work just fine but may not be code compliant. A forth option is to use a self threading screw I believe(not self-tapping) that needs to meet x amount of thread cuts and you could install your own third box ground screw for the fixture this way.


Sorry I've confused you even more, but there are quite a few alternatives out there.

 

[yummy mummy]

What I ended up doing was wiring the ground wire to the ground screw on the fixture and then carrying it up into the box, and bundling all the grounds together (which are ground to the box also).