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A little while ago I bought some of the below recessed lights for the basement. Had an issue where one wasn't working so I punched a hole into the ceiling and pulled the junction box down, re-nutted the hot, and neutral wires just in case to no avail. Long story short in my attempt to Get the junction box, I was pulling on the power wire a bit but evidently a bit too hard. Pulled the white sheath out of the box. Tried opening the junction box, couldn't figure it out, so I put it back together, shoved the white sheath back in, and wrapped electrical tape around the opening then put it back in the ceiling. Magically, the light worked.

Now because of that sheath coming loose and me electrical taping it, I just wanted to make sure there wouldn't be an issue with it down the road that I should be seriously concerned about.

Should I buy a new light for the junction box, or am I good?

The lights: Sunco Lighting 4 Inch Slim LED... https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07MLYD75M?ref=ppx_pop_mob_ap_share

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    Punched a hole in the ceiling?? You can't mud over ANY junction box! If it requires tools or angry fists to get to the cover of any junction box, that is a code violation. – Harper Jun 17 at 13:27
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    photos would help us understand it... – Harper Jun 17 at 13:29
  • I have a set almost identical to these; the documentation calls it a "junction box" but it's really only an LED driver connection box. Not sure why you'd have to "punch" to get to it... the lights are held in the ceiling by springs and are easily removed along with the driver box. – Fred Shope Jun 17 at 15:07
  • I will need to get a picture later tonight. The reason for the hole is because where the light placement came out to be, it came out right on a stud, so there wasn't enough room to get the junction box up past the stud so I needed to create a hole a couple inches away. You can still see the junction box, touch it, etc, just can't fit it through the hole. – user6571907 Jun 17 at 19:22
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You are likely to have issues and I would strongly recommend replacing at least the LED driver box ("junction box"), if not the entire light.

The white cable that connects to the driver box contains at least two low-voltage wires, and is secured to the grounded metal driver box by a plastic collar. Contact between the metal box and the internal wires likely caused your issue, pulling on the cable probably caused further exposure of the internal wires, and if your wire nuts aren't well-secured inside the box due to some of this punching and pulling, you could have a real mess on your hands from low voltage + high voltage + ground contact.

Rather than punching holes in the ceiling, try to pull the light downward out of the hole and the driver box should follow.

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  • Thanks, I will need to take a look and see if I can find just the driver box or just purchase a brand new light replacement for it. Reason I can't just pull it out is because it's right on a stud, so not enough room to just pull the junction box down. You can see it, touch it, etc, just can't remove it. – user6571907 Jun 17 at 19:23

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