PureCRXtasy

I want to hang a 4 bulb 4' fluorescent light above my pool table. This is in my basement. It's unfinished and the ceiling is just rafters at the moment. It looks like this:



First, what do I use to hang the fixture? Do I need a box or can I just just attach it to the rafters?

Second, I want to use a Dimmer switch to turn it on and off and adjust the light output. I bought a 40 watt single pole dimmer and have it hooked up like this so far:



From my understanding, white is the Hot wire, black is neutral and copper is ground. I'm not quite sure of is how to connect the fixture to the switch. The ballast has a white and black and the fixture itself has a green ground screw. My assumption is connect all 3 whites together and all 3 grounds and wrap it around the green on the fixture. Do I connect the 2 black wires in the second pic together with one wire from the switch and connect the black from the ballast to the other black on the switch? That makes the most sense to me, but I'd rather ask someone that does this ---- for a living

Here is a pic of the fixture:


Click the images for a much larger version

RotaryGeek

i cant see the pics, but im not very good at electrical crap either.

PureCRXtasy

Do you mean you can't see them at all or they're not big enough?

JonDouglas

Black is the hot wire. White is neutral. Bare copper or green is the ground.

The wiring scheme is different for different situations, but it looks like you have the power coming in from the bottom of the box and then you are just feeding power up to the fixture from there. In this case just hook one black wire to the switch and the other black wire to the other wire on the switch.

Also I don't think you can use a dimmer on flourecsent lights. If someone knows better on this one then please chime in.

PureCRXtasy

I just spoke with my cousin that does hvac and knows electrical stuff pretty well. He said to connect it like this:

Xgenturbo

You CAN dim fluorescent lights, but only if you have a special ballast.

http://members.misty.com/don/f-dim.html

Good info on there about dimming fluoreschent lamps.