"Roy Mottola" wrote
at the existing light you had one black wire and one white wire attached
to the fixture. First , leave the white wire on the fixture. Second,
splice the black wire formerly on the fixture to the white wire going to
the switch. Third, attach the black wire coming back from the switch to
the fixture. Last, connect both wires to switch terminals , doesn't matter
which way

one little refinement would be to wrap a band of electrical tape around the
white wire going to the switch - this indicates that the white wire is part
of the hot side of the circuit. obviously this makes no functional
difference, but someday, someone (maybe even you!) will want to make some
other alteration in that j-box and this little flag will be a signal about
what's going on!

so you know, it is generally considered good practice to locate the switch
on the hot side of the circuit, i.e. current hits the switch before the
fixture - just as you describe in your "what went wrong" paragraph. it is
almost always possible to do this, even when retrofitting existing wiring.
the reason that this is desirable is that it adds an extra level of safety -
if someone is working on the light fixture, for example, and accidentally
turned off the wrong breaker, there is some chance that they will avoid a
shock because the circuit (in the wire that is actually connected to the
fixture) is broken (by the switch being in the off position). no guarantees,
but at least it reduces the number of ways you can create a short circuit if
you made a mistake somewhere else.

oh, and remember to leave the pull-cord in the "on" position once you
re-wire. :-)


--
forrest_m
forrest underscore m at hotmail