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I am trying to replace a dome light with a nice small ceiling fan. When disassembling the old light, I notice an odd orange/clear clip connecting the lights ground to the house. What is this called, and how can I get it off? Can I reuse it, or do I need to cut the wires and get a new one?

The other wires were twisted together with one of the plastic twisty thing (bonus points if you can tell me the name of that twisty thing). I have a few extras, can I just use it to splice the new ground wire to the house?

Basically, what do I do here?

Forgive the grainy picture. With the lights being off, I had to have a high ISO to get it. Safety first!

Notice that from the ceiling two copper wires are coming down and hooked in, and a very small (bottom left of black) is going from the light to the clip.

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The photo is so poorly done it's very hard to see and identify anything. All I see is "there're twisted wires and perhaps a connector strip with plug-in terminals". – sharptooth Jul 12 '12 at 10:58
Perhaps just an odd type of wire nut? – maple_shaft Jul 12 '12 at 11:17
The plastic "twisty thing", is a Twist-on wire connector also known as a wire nut in the US. – Tester101♦ Jul 12 '12 at 12:13

1 Answer

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That is a in-sure push-in wire connector. It's spring-loaded. To remove it, pull while twisting. The full spec sheets on them are at http://www.idealindustries.com/prodDetail.do?prodId=in-sure&div=0&l1=push-in , and DIY.SE did a blog entry on them as well at http://diy.blogoverflow.com/2012/01/tool-review-ideal-in-sure-push-in-wire-connectors/

enter image description here

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DO NOT pull and twist to remove them (well you can, but you'll damage the wire), there should be a small opening where you can fit a small screwdriver in to release the locking mechanism. Removing them; even with the release, may damage the wire forcing you to trim it back. According to the manufacturer, these are not reusable. So probably the easiest way to remove them is simply to cut the wires as close to the connector as possible, and then re-strip the wire. – Tester101♦ Jul 12 '12 at 12:11

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