Electrical help

[WatercolorsGuy]

So I must have screwed something up in rewiring my Evo LED lights.

If I plug them into a wall socket they seem to work just fine. However if I plug them into a power strip or non grounded extension cord they do not.

I am guessing I have got the neutral wire and the ground wires reversed. Does this sound correct?

The 2 power cords that came with the light are three conductor cords. The wires in each cord did not have a uniform color code...meaning out of six wires I had five different colors and guessed at which ones were hot, neutral and ground.

The light would work without what I thought was the ground hooked up. Would the light power on in the wall socket if I got the hot wire correct, but the neutral and ground backwards?

 

[Walter White]

yes I think that is it the ground and neutral are probably reversed. At least with out seeing it and based on what you have described i think that may be the problem.

 

[jahmic]

That does sound right to me...neutral and ground seem to be reversed.

 

[Zooid]

yes I think that is it the ground and neutral are probably reversed. At least with out seeing it and based on what you have described i think that may be the problem.

+1
The reason it works when you plug it into the wall is because your ground is acting like the neutral.
Normally the neutral wire color is white, sometimes with European standards it will be blue.
Hot is normally black but is sometimes brown with European standards.
Green is normally ground.....if you have a cord with brown, blue and black, then black should be ground.

The best way to tell is with a multimeter. The hot pin on the plug is smaller than the neutral pin.

 

[WatercolorsGuy]

Re: Electrical help

Thanks you guys for the input and answers. Yep, that is exactly what I did. I used the ground as the neutral and vice versa. I went and got a multimeter and checked. I should have done it in the beginning for safety. Going to rewire it the right way tomorrow. Should be an easy fix compared to all I had to do to get it back working from the swim it took.