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This is a follow up from my other post to do a more permenant and appropriate fix for replacing an existing 6" LED all-in-one with a bigger / brighter fixture.

Currently, in my ceiling I have NHIC-17QAT 6" IC Air-Tight Line Voltage Housing. This has a housing with a screw in light connector and a JBox. In my original post I didn't know exactly what is inside, but since then I found the spec sheet and installation instructions. This looks to be relatively simple, but since it's already in the ceiling, I didn't want to experiment with the real thing for the first time so I went out and bought another fixture so I could practice opening it and doing everything right before trying to do it through the existing hole in the drywall.

Here are my questions:

  1. Should I remove the existing wiring to the enclosure or leave it? i.e., Should I do another punch out? To remove the existing wiring, it looks like its put in with a one way clip - any special way to remove it or just break it off?
  2. Do I need to run the wires from the new light through the metal tubing or is that not necessary?
  3. What type of clip should I buy? I see some with adjustable / screw types, but I think that will be hard to actually screw in reaching up through the ceiling hole.
  4. Inside the box, instead of wiring nuts, it has these quick connectors - to remove just pull out, to insert the new fixture, just push - will I hear a click or something to know it is in and locked?

Quick Connect Feature: Housing contains three UL approved push-in wire connectors that allow 1/4" stripped solid or tinned standard wires to be inserted. Connectors are attached to fixture power, common, and ground circuits

More or less, I think this is a matter of put the wires through a hole, make sure the wires are secured so they don't just pull out, and connect matching wires, but thought I should double check on anything else needed to connect this up.

  1. I think I should be able to get the wire to reach, but what if it's not long enough?

  2. The other part I am concerned about, is that in order to attach the light to my ceiling there is a mounting plate you screw into the ceiling, I think the wire needs to go through this hole as well, but this is only about 2.5". I am not sure how I am supposed to do everything with the length of wire and space available. It would seem I would need to thread the wire through the mounting plate and connect the wires while somehow supporting the mounting plate and the light on a short leash? Maybe its not important for the wires to go through the hole in the center?

Photos:

What is looks like currently from the ceiling:

Hole where the fixture is, with the housing still in:
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Area I need to do all steps through / access to the jbox:
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Box in the ceiling, camera through the cut out:
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The fixture, with jbox open on the new one I bought for practice:
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Close up on the clip holding the current wires in:
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Side view of the jbox:
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New Light Fixture:
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The mounting plate:
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Installation instructions:
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Photos showing the wiring for the light going through mounting plate:
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Simulating the length of wire and constraints I would need to work through to go through the mounting plate and then get to the side of the wiring box, which is a very short length of wire! I gues normally this would be with a ceiling box where I could just pull the wires down to work with?
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Bypassing the hole with a different placement, but very little wire to work with to make it to the box and the connect on the inside:
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HelpEric
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2 Answers2

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So it looks to me like you have a length of Romex (NM) cable coming into your existing light. It's undoubtedly connected to the little metal clad (MC) cable that goes from the box to the actual lamp housing. Could use those same push connectors as your new one, or since it's older it may use wire nuts. Anyway, you can basically disconnect the wires in the MC and cap them off since you won't be using them again.

Two scenarios here:

One:

Depending on the position of your new surface mount light in relation to the hole, you may need a new length of NM to connect your new light—the light's wire may not be long enough. You'll want to pop open one of the unused knockouts and install a bushing or other appropriate clamp for the hole. Stick your new length of NM in the bushing, connect to the NM from the house using nuts or wagos or whatever. Put the cover plate back on the box. You should end up with the house NM going in, and your new NM coming out.

You'll likely need another electrical box because you'll need to connect your light wires to your new NM. You could probably screw a box inside the ceiling, hiding the mounting screws above the light panel. Stick the free end of your new NM into the new box, stick your light wire into the box, connect them together, and put a cover on the box.

Mount your new light to the ceiling.

Two:

If you can position your new light such that there's a lot of slack in its cable, you might be able to run that cable directly into the old light's box and connect to the house NM there.

Huesmann
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Seems like you may be overthinking this a bit. You should be able to use a simple socket-pigtail adapter, screwed into your original fixture socket. There won't be a ground wire available but assumption would be that the original recessed can was grounded when installed (you could verify this) so the new fixture's ground wire could be attached to the old can with a ground clip or screw.

enter image description here

This pic is from a product on a web retailer site but not a recommendation, please find a UL Listed one.

Jimmy Fix-it
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