My Latest Bonehead Maneuver

[sKiTzo]

I have a basic understanding of wiring from wiring switches, receptacles, etc. and I even figured out how to wire my doorbell in with my porch light successfully, but every time I try to save money by coming up with some "ingenious" workaround, it ends up costing more! With that, here is my question:

I bought a pair of LED Malibu-style lights for my yard. They each have a corded regular 120v plug and a remote for on/off and settings. The cords are very short so you have to supply your own wiring and conduit for installation. Since they each have their own remote, I figured I could save myself the cost of 35 ft. of wire by wiring it this way (see attachment) with a shared ground. I figured ground is ground is ground and the remote on/off button would toggle the positive wires to each light (which are separate). It didn't work and one of the remotes even smells burnt. Why didn't this work?

 

[littlespark]

Take power from only one outlet.

Run to first light, make a suitably enclosed joint and run a length to the second light.

Your diagram makes It look much more complicated than it should be.

If there’s a burning smell, then something has gone wrong and that part will have to be replaced.

 

[sKiTzo]

Take power from only one outlet.

Run to first light, make a suitably enclosed joint and run a length to the second light.

Your diagram makes It look much more complicated than it should be.

If there’s a burning smell, then something has gone wrong and that part will have to be replaced.

Thanks for the reply. If I use just one outlet will I still be able to program them separately with the remotes?

 

[sKiTzo]

Take power from only one outlet.

Run to first light, make a suitably enclosed joint and run a length to the second light.

Your diagram makes It look much more complicated than it should be.

If there’s a burning smell, then something has gone wrong and that part will have to be replaced.

Here is the updated wiring as per your suggestion. So, today I learned you can have 2 lights on the exact same circuit (shared hot and shared ground) and still program each with different colors via the remote controls. It makes sense - the remote interacts with the circuitry in the corresponding light fixture, and not the wiring. Thank you. You're right, I had made it unnecessarily more complicated but it's still unclear to me why it didn't work that way...