Wire Two Lights To One Switch
The most common is to daisy chain the light fixtures by connecting them to each other and hooking the first one up to the switch.
Wire two lights to one switch. Connect the black wire from the switch to the black wire from the first light and the black wire coming from the second light. Attach the white from the second light to the white from the power supply. Connect the black wire from the power supply to the white wire of the cable connected to the switch. This diagram shows the additional cable connected to an existing ceiling rose.
The other end of this cable is taken to the position of the new light. However between the first and second light you ll need a 3 wire line to handle the hot neutral switched combination. Connect one wire to the first switch in the box and the second wire to the other switch and connect the black wire from each of the lights to the other terminal on its respective switch. You can do this light switch wiring in one of two ways.
One black wire for the switch as the power source. The most common wiring connections for two outdoor light fixture the black wires going to the motion light fixtures need to join together but not on the switch instead splice the two wires after the switch. The new cable here is labelled light 2. Between the second light and the switch you can run a 2 wire line just replace the red line with the white and tape the ends of the white with black tape to indicate it s a switched hot.
Run your cable from the first light to the second light. The other way to wire multiple lights to one switch is to connect all of them directly to the switch in a home run configuration. The white or neutral wires bypass the switch so the one coming from the power source and the one from the light get spliced and capped in the box. With this wiring configuration you would end up with 3 black wires.
The ground wire on the other hand must connect to both switches and the easiest way to do this is to make a pigtail as you did with the hot wires. Connect the black wire from the switch to the black wire from the first light and the black wire coming from the second light. Wrap a piece of black electrical tape around each end of this white wire to indicate that it is a hot wire rather than a neutral wire. The second light is within 10 feet from the switch whereas the first light is about 30 feet from it.
Basically the simplest way to have multiple lights on one switch is to run a power supply wire to the switch first. Green to ground the white wire on the timer to the neutral white wires splice that will be in the box and the black wire on the timer to the hot conductor one of the two on the existing switch then the timer red wire to the black wire on the existing switch that is connected to the lights. This would be a two wire cable black white ground take the black wire and connect it to one screw on the switch and connect the ground wire to a screw inside the electrical switch box mounted to the wall. Attach the white from the second light to the white from the power supply.
Duane 8 years ago. I m still pretty green when it comes to home wiring. The second option allows you to easily disconnect fixtures you no longer want to use but it becomes cumbersome when more than two fixtures are involved. Run your cable from the first light to the second light.