Kitchen Ceiling Florescent Light in Need of Grounding?

Question

Our old four-bulb florescent fixture was looking shabby and the the plastic cover broke. On uninstalling it - I see there are only two wires available. But when I bought the new fixture they make a point of saying that you need to have a ground. The warn otherwise the light not come on predictably or some other issue. With a kitchen ceiling light like this - what are my real risks of just using the two existing wires positive and neg and forgoing the ground? Worked fine with the old fixture for the last 14 years.

Thanks for the advice so far. I have the thing mounted. There's a green "grounding screw" in the fixture and I guess I'm supposed to put the a grounding wire to it. Only there's no grounding wire. Also in the instructions is says black should go to black and white to white. But this was put in ages ago and it's just old black wire - both + and -.

I ran out and got some electrical tape as the old stuff is so old it's brittle and flaking. But how do I tell if I have the polarity right? And should I just run a wire that touches say the electrical box out of which + and - hang down..and connect that to the green screw?

Well it's working! Looking closer at the old wires I one of them had faded old white paint on it and went for it to be the white. Sho-nuf. I put a wire on the green grounding screw and grounded that best I could. I will be very careful doing any maintenance on it in the future in any case having heard about the voltage potential and my amature status in all this.

Answer 1

The first person to answer is right. The ground is for safety, but be sure to use it! the internal wiring in the light is actually 480v usually. This is more than enough to kill. An accidental touch of the "hot" wire to the ungrounded enclosure will cause it to become energized and if you are grounded and touch it you WILL recieve a shock and/or kill you. Please be safe. Also, verify that the box is metal, and is grounded or it is ineffective as well.

Answer 2

it will work fine,
the ground wire is for safety purposes.
the new fixture comes w/ a metal plate right?
it attaches to the box which should be metal also..screwing the 2 together with the 8/32 screws provided will bond the fixture, u should wrap the bare ground wire around one of the screws to be sure.

Answer 3

Ground it!!!!! To the green screw. The key words here are NEW and FLUORESCENT. The new ballasts used to run the lamps are electronic and need to be grounded properly. With out it you will run the risk of GREATLY reducing the life of the ballast. Also make DOUBLE sure you have to polarity correct as this will blow the ballast also. DAMM new ballasts I hate them.