Replacing pendant lights and have a question on all the ceiling box wires

Question

I'm trying to change our existing 2 pendant lights over our kitchen island to new ones we purchased. House was built in 2005 (modular home). After removing 1 of the existing pendant lights I panicked about why I have (out of the ceiling box) 3 white wires and only 2 black....I capped everything off with wire nuts...and STOPPED :) Inside the ceiling box there were 2 black wires and 3 white wires that were connected with brass/copper color tube thing and squeezed together and then they had a clear big cap that looked like a wire nut. The 3 ground wires just have the copper/brass tube thing attaching the ends squeezed on. (see pic 1)

The old pendant light (see pic 2) had one yellow coated wire that was pulled apart into two wires, then one silver wire that was attached to the base of the pendant and 1 copper color wire that was I assume ground? Wiring was like this on the old pendant light to the ceiling box …They attached one of the yellow coated wires to the white (3) bundled wires of the ceiling box. They attached the other yellow coated wire to the black (2) bundled wires of the ceiling box. They attached the silver wire to the green ground screw of the plate. They attached the copper wire to the 3 copper (ground) bundled wires inside the ceiling box inside the brass/copper color tube thing as described above.

I pulled off the tube connector thingy of the white and black bundles. I cut the copper skinny wire from the old light fixture from the copper (ground) bundle in the ceiling box. (you can see the tail end in pic 1 - the other end is still inside the tube connector on the bundle of the copper (3) wires inside the ceiling box).

Here's my questions: 1) why do I have 3 white and only 2 black wires in that ceiling box? Could the white extra be coming from the recessed lights elsewhere on the ceiling? Those lights are on a dimmer switch (which does NOT control the pendant lights) 2) Do I attach (from the new pendant light) black to the (2) black wires, white to the (3) white wires, and ground wire to that little piece of left over ground wire hanging from the ceiling .Or do I put the ground from the new light onto the green screw on the plate only? 3) I have orange, yellow and red wire nuts connectors (size in that order) - which ones to use for these large bundle connections since I don't have those brass tube connectors that you squeeze on?

Answer 1

The silver wire is also a ground. Chains are not grounding paths so a pendant needs 2 grounds - one down the chain to the pendant, and the other for the box cover.

I suspect the manufacturer ran an extra run of 14/2 (12/2?) Romex from the switch to support a ceiling fan which you don't have (yet). I bet the third black is folded up in the back of the box, but they tied this pair's white wire with the other white wires. That's making my spider-sense tingle, but I can't say why. Might make a good question.

Since the power is fed from the switch (no weird switch loops) you should be able to connect all blacks to each other, ditto the whites. All grounds must be connected together. I don't see any obvious way that upper steel plate bonds to the maze of ground wires above it, and that makes me a bit nervous. Is that a steel box above, and is the ground bundle bonded to it in some way? I see a screw, but it's not green and may be a physical mounting. Is the steel cover plate tightly screwed to the steel box?

As far as wire-nuts, each make of wire-nut is listed for certain combinations of wire. For instance Ideal's 73B (orange), 74B (yellow) and 76B (red) are covered in a document titled UL Listed wire combinations... Generally I like to be in the middle of the working range for a wire-nut, so I'd go yellow for 3 wires, red for 4, and orange for something that seemed on the smallish range for yellow.