Is it possible to rewire any light fixture to the connection of a track light, to make a custom track light?
Question:i know there is more to it than connecting wires so if the wattage is the same from the track light to the new fixture will they be compatable? will there be a problem going from halogen to incandescent? will i burn my house down?
Answers:
Rewiring a light fixture to a custom tracklight fixture will not affect what is already present provided you rewire the new track lighting the CORRECT way (ie. HOT to HOT (typically black to black or red to red), neutral to neutral (white to white) and ground the connection. (bare copper wire to bare copper wire). If you wire these the wrong way you should only trip the circuit breaker, and that would be the end of it, but stranger things have happened and something worse could happen. If you aren't comfortable with wiring then get someone who has worked around power to do it for you. If you do it on your own, make sure you TURN THE CIRCUIT OFF so you don't accidentally electrocute yourself...120 Volt shock or worse, across your heart, is NOT a good thing.
The light fixture (for the US) will take 120VDC power which is what the power in your home has been stepped down to from the power lines coming in from the street. Simply rewiring the new fixture to the same wires that the older fixture was wired to, will supply the necessary power for the fixture, and wattage output of the new fixture will be that of whatever wattage lightbulbs you install into the fixture. Typically the fixture will recommend a particular wattage rating for the bulbs you should buy.
The wattage you speak of is what the bulb puts out. So you can have a 100 watt incandescent bulb and a 100 watt halogen bulb. The biggest difference is that an incandescent bulb and a halogen bulb typically are threaded differently so your halogen bulb is not going to screw into a normal incandescent light fixture (ie, a lamp) and vice versa.
As a rule of thumb (for the laymen) is the higher the wattage the "brighter the bulb". A 100W bulb will be brighter than a 60W bulb either incandescent or halogen.
In addition to the wattage, there is also the weight of the fixture to take into account. Also, the track lights may have some heat shielding incorporated into the design that will be lacking in another fixture. Halogen to incandescent should not be a particular problem, but this simply is not practical otherwise.
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