I have recessed lighting with only 2 wires, black and red, both hot

Lucien Nunes said:

How are you determining that both wires are hot - are you using a non-contact voltage indicator or one with two probes and a readout? If so, what are your actual voltage measurements? The only way a light could be working with two hots is if they are on different phases and there is 240 or 208V between them.

Is there 3-way switching involved? If so, you might have a naughty 'Carter' switching system where both wires are hot in one of the 'off' combinations and one or other wire goes to neutral to switch the light on.

But most likely you are being misled by the voltage detector e.g. because the neutral or ground is broken somewhere, and one wire is not really hot but just floating with a voltage on it through capacitive coupling to a genuine hot. That is why we need proper measurements of voltage to know with certainty,

Click to expand...

acraigl said:

Trying to figure out how to properly wire an MR16 LED fixture to light given that I only have 2 accessible wires and these are both hot when the switch is enabled (using voltage detector). No neutral is available here and it's part of a series -- 3 other existing lights function when the switch is turned on, as you can see in the second shot.
View attachment 92861 View attachment 92862

I have some MR16 ceramic base adapters but I'm hesitant to connect one here given the situation. Any thoughts are much appreciated!

Click to expand...