Hi I am moving a hanging ceiling fixture from one room to another. The power cord on the hanging lamp is one color, not black and white at the ends. I forgot to take note which cord went to black and which to white. One lead is ribbed and the other is smooth instead of being color coded. Is there a rule of thumbe as to which will go to white and which to black?

Thanks

Lamp cords typically have these types of cords, and if you look at one of those, the ribbed is on the "large" conductor of the plug, which would be the negative (or white) side. With an incandescent bulb, though, there shouldn't be any problem if they're reversed, since they work both ways. I wouldn't worry about it.

Greg

The polarity is very important and must never be reversed!

[This message has been edited by Joe Tedesco (edited January 05, 2003).]

Is lamp cord allowed to be wired direct into the box. It seems to me that this cord should have a plug on it and be plugged into a recepticle.

After thinking about this the other night, I realize that I was in error before. As another poster helpfully pointed out, polarity is indeed an issue. The way the bulb screws in, it first comes into contact with the neutral connector, and only when it's in all the way does it contact the "hot" contact at the base. This would ensure that if you touched the outer metal rim of the bulb as it was being screwed in, you'd only have contact with neutral. Reversing the polarity would indeed pose a hazard.

Figuring out which wire is absolutely the "hot" wire would be as simple as using a circuit tester and checking which wire is connected to the center contact in the receptacle. But if this is the case where it's an Ikea fixture or something intended to be plugged in and has been field retrofit to be hard wired, I'd suggest getting the correct hard-wired unit.