# Whips for Emergency Lights/Exit signs



## A Good Electrician (May 29, 2011)

Hey Guys. So, Is it true that you are not allowed to feed through (go in and out) of an Exit sign or emergency light? The explanation I was given was that it is to prevent losing all of the emergency lights in the event one of the fixtures in that circuit was damaged or went bad. Seems to me that as long as it was made up under wire nuts then you will not lose anything up or down stream of a damaged fixture. Thoughts? 
Maybe I'm just getting my chain yanked but i can't find it in the code.


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## Vintage Sounds (Oct 23, 2009)

Local code or urban legend?


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## A Good Electrician (May 29, 2011)

I'm thinking Urban legend.


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## A Good Electrician (May 29, 2011)

I guess I'm just curious what the origin would be. I'm beginning to notice that there are often reasons that we DID do things long ago that at the time was the New Safe way of doing it and then slowly they become obsolete. So often we just do stuff because, "We've always done it that way." there's usually context for everything.


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## Vintage Sounds (Oct 23, 2009)

People who don't actually read the codebook don't have the ability to differentiate between the actual code, local amendments, job specs and urban legends. These guys will believe anything you tell them but can't prove anything they try to tell you.

Another common one is "you have to use #12 on a commercial job because it's code". It isn't.


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## A Good Electrician (May 29, 2011)

Agreed


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## FF301 (Jan 12, 2014)

I think it was determined in a previous thread this is a calif. Rule.


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## catsparky1 (Sep 24, 2013)

It is an L A code only . Im doing a restaurant in fresno designed by an L A architect with that same code on my drawings . Mt inspector said WTF .


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## Hoodood (May 19, 2012)

Seems to me that exit & em. lights are fixtures. A fixture has to be rated for such splicing such as certain flour. fixtures. Another thing to keep in mind. If that fixture needs to be removed how will the exposed wires be safely contained without a box? I assume you are daisy chaining directly into these fixtures. If not then wouldn't you be doing the splicing in the box with a tail into the fixture?


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## Going_Commando (Oct 1, 2011)

Hoodood said:


> Seems to me that exit & em. lights are fixtures. A fixture has to be rated for such splicing such as certain flour. fixtures. Another thing to keep in mind. If that fixture needs to be removed how will the exposed wires be safely contained without a box? I assume you are daisy chaining directly into these fixtures. If not then wouldn't you be doing the splicing in the box with a tail into the fixture?


My exit signs and e-lights are always mounted on a box. Id shoot myself if I had to direct wire those damn things.


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## FaultCurrent (May 13, 2014)

In the City of Los Angeles you can go in and out of an emergency fixture or the j-box on which the fixture is mounted.

Exit sign junction boxes are dead end only with one emergency and one normal power circuit i.e. 4 wires into the box. Typically a feed is brought from a normal power j-box and another from an e-power j-box into exit sign j-box. 

This is a leftover from the old days when there was only the LA City Code - no NEC. The City was forced to adopt the NEC in 1974 using the 1968 NEC. 

In the old days there were Class A, B, and C sources for emergency power. Today they would be a separate service, genset, battery, or a tap ahead of the main which was the Class C service. The idea was that you would have two independent sources available at all times so at least one exit lamp bulb was lit if one source failed. This technology was all there was for 75 years. Remember in 1925 there was no self contained unit lighting. The NEC dropped the tap ahead of the main from article 700 but the rest soldiers on.


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