Need advise installing Cam pan v3 on my garage

Good thinking. I’m no spring chicken anymore. :slight_smile:

1 Like

I’m ready to go! Thanks for the suggestion. I assume the white an black wires can go to either side since it is A/C, right?

1 Like

I have used a couple of the Wasserstein flood lights with my WYZE cameras for several years now, before WYZE floodlights came out. They are a nice heavy watertight housing with really bright lights but there is no app to control them – just motion activated. One of them just failed (about 5 years old now) and I replaced it with a WYZE Floodlight V2. Now I have the ability to use automation and turn the lights on or off dynamically, and the camera is integrated.

1 Like

White wire from the new Flood/Cam gets connected to the existing white. The new flood black to the existing black, don’t forget the greed ground wire. I don’t have a flood/cam but I have changed my existing motion flood light three times in 39 years, always the same. Turn off the switch, remove old flood, white to white, black to black and the green ground. :upside_down_face:

Not having used them myself, that’s my impression of them, too, which seems like a potential downside. I was just thinking back to @alfredojahn’s original question and plan, and this seemed like another potential solution, especially given the additional information that his current motion-sensing floodlight doesn’t activate consistently. I don’t have any personal skin in the game and think that a Wyze Cam Floodlight is probably the better solution for someone who wants to maximize control of the lights as well as the camera.

For your permanent installation, you’ll want to match the colors, as @Antonius suggested. It should be fairly straightforward, though I don’t think the Cam Floodlights have a green ground wire.

Based on the photo, for your test the side of the wire with parallel ridges in the insulated jacket appears to be the neutral (white) side, because it looks like that aligns with the wider blade of the plug. The wire with the smooth insulation jacket should connect to the narrow-blade side of the plug, and that should be the wire for line/hot (black). That’s how I would connect the floodlight for initial setup and testing, anyway.

If you have one of those non-contact voltage testers (kind of looks like a pen but with a blunt plastic blade for the tip), then you should be able to use that to confirm which side is hot, I think. That’s where I’d connect the black wire for testing.

Yes, I am aware of connecting the light to the existing location where my old flood light is now. My question was related to the temporary power cord used to set it up on my bench before hooking it up to the final spot. Someone suggested this as a way to set it up without climbing on a ladder. :slight_smile:

Hopefully my answer makes sense. :crossed_fingers:

Thanks for calling that out based on the connector. I’ll mark the ends with black and white electrical tape. So the narrow blade is black and the wide blade is white.

I do have one of those testers. Not sure how to use it to test which is the hot side. I think I will use your narrow and wide blade trick. Thanks for your help.

I found this with a google search.

1 Like

Correct, and on those two-conductor cords the smooth side is hot/line (black) and the ribbed side is neutral (white). I don’t do it often enough myself, so I look it up to check, too.

Even with nothing spliced into your WAGO connectors, I think you have the ends separated enough that you could plug the cord into a powered outlet and bring the tester tip near the end of each wire to determine which is “hot”. The circuit doesn’t have to be complete (like if you were using two probes of a multimeter to test), and I think that’s the point of those non-contact voltage testers. That’s what I’ve used (carefully!) inside a live junction box to determine which line is hot so I would know how to connect a smart three-way dimmer switch.

My standard disclaimer: I am not an electrician.

1 Like

So I won’t forget…

1 Like

One of the floodlights, V2 or pro can’t remember which, has a third ground wire. The junction box only has 2 wires so I connected the ground to the metal junction box.

For a temporary rig like his, it doesn’t really matter which one is the load.

From watching installation videos, the Cam Floodlight V2 only has a black and white wire. They suggest you ground the green wire to the included metal mounting bracket with the included grounding screw.

I just watched the video for the Cam Floodlight Pro and it also only has a black and white wire,

1 Like

Maybe Cam Floodlight v2? I was thinking of installation videos I’ve seen for Cam Floodlight Pro, including on the Cam Floodlight Plug-In Mount’s product page, which apparently doesn’t have a ground wire (and neither does the Plug-In Mount, which is supposed to work with all three models).

That’s what I recall seeing, as well: a green or bare copper ground wire coming into the junction box from the house side, not from the device you’re trying to connect.

1 Like

NO! The larger plug on the extension cord must go to white, the smaller to black.

The spotlights use LEDs and you risk toasting them if backwards. The cam itself runs off a non-polarized AC to DC rectifier so that part would probably be fine, but make sure to get it connected properly.

The extension cord should have ridges on the neutral which helps you trace it from one end to the other or you can use a multimeter to see which wago port has +120V, that’s the black one.

That’ll do it (I usually just bother marking black, I do the same on bulk speaker wire). I like to save my more expensive white and red tape (have to go to the top of the line 3M stuff to get that) for other things :slight_smile:

A non contact tester or multimeter will confirm but as long as the ridged one is white you should be good. Note, I’d still leave it unplugged until you get your connections made, ensure they are not touching each other or anything else, then plug it in.

The mounting bracket will have the green wire, you ground the bracket to the round mounting box if it is metal. That’s just a code requirement. The light/cam itself is plastic so no grounding needed on it, but everything metallic has to be bonded so there should be a jumper attached to the bracket which screws to the box along with the ground you have feeding the box. Of course code says you can only put one wire under that box screw, so in reality you’re supposed to use a wire nut with a short jumper, connect all 3 under the nut and the jumper to the box screw. In practice, as long as you get both tight under the screw, it is fine. Grounding the bracket is somewhat useless, it will be covered by the light, and connected with metal screws to the box and most likely making perfectly good contact. It is really only bonded because the bracket has sharp edges and could potentially cut into the hot, but if not bonded well, not trip the breaker.

I’m a bit OCD with electrical, so when I replaced my outdoor lights last summer (just standard dusk to dawn motion sensor ones, all plastic) I did use wire nuts and do it correctly. I use the “greenies” so you can pass one ground through (preferably a solid one, but the stranded one typically attached to the bracket is fine too) and attach it to the box, no jumper wire needed.

That particular floodlight must have metal components exposed, thus requiring ground. Grounding the cam to the junction box if the junction box is not grounded accomplishes nothing, unless the junction box is fed using MC/BX (the metal sheathed cable) which can act as a ground in old installs (not allowed in new ones though).

It depends on the electronics feeding the LED lights, if they don’t have a robust enough set of electronics, backwards can easily fry the LEDs. I suspect they probably don’t have that level or protection, so I would not risk it.

We technically don’t even know how the power supply feeding the camera is set up, but logic would say it is using the same type of rectifier as the wall wart plugs, and those do not care about polarity. But again, don’t risk it.

Yup, it an be finnicky, you’ll need a few inches of separation but looks like that’s what @alfredojahn arrived at below. But those brown extension cords use the ridges to make it easy to identify too (though I still like to verify).

The junction box has metal conduit leading to it. I checked, it is grounded.

Yup, no longer code compliant in many cases but grandfathered in on existing installs. So you just need to bond the bracket/cam to the box and you’re good. Same for the flexible MC/BX, they all come with a ground wire in them now, where in the past the sheath was the ground.

Good to know this.

I plan to plug my brown extension cord into a power strip and then just flip on the power on the strip (instead of plugging it into the outlet). It seems safer. Thanks for the help.