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OK, I am pretty handy around the house, but electrical stuff makes my head hurt sometimes.

I can swap/install ceiling fans, fixtures, Garage door openers, etc. no problem as long as everything works, but if it doesn't, I am lost.

I am trying to replace an old motion sensor floodlight with a non sensor bulb setup. The old motion light had a wall switch for on/off in the house. I took the old motion floodlight housing down (disconnected the hot, neutral and ground) and replaced the old halogen (unknown wattage bulbs) bulb-fixtures with standard (E32) LED floodlight fixtures and bulbs (12W x2) and now it trips the breaker every time I put it under load and I cannot figure out why. I used the same in-wall round fixture box so I didn't have to cut stucco to fit a new one (that seems to be a bit larger for some reason...), but I removed the in-wall round fixture box and then replaced it. It's mounted to wood (under the stucco), so I don't know if there is now a grounding issue causing the short, but the setup is exactly the same as it was previously when it worked...

Here is a pic of the new light wiring (pardon the use of black wire for the bulb-to-housing ground, I didn't have any spare green colored wired.

https://ibb.co/dDQrs0B

Is there a ground wire from the house somewhere that is supposed to connect to the in-wall round box that I am missing? I didn't see anything when I took it out of the stucco initially.

Thoughts?

Should I just tear the whole house down and start from scratch?

You are right, Gene, I didn';t have any green wire laying around to run from each bulb to the case (and the fixture didn't come with them). Good point on trying it on the bench. I have a multimeter, I will check it and see.

More than one meter.

it will read 220 or 221, whatever it takes...

If the breaker is tripping as soon as you switch it on, you've wired it wrong.

Hot side in the socket is the tab at the bottom.

Neutral in the socket is the threaded part.

Take it off the house, put your multimeter in ohms/continuity mode. Put one lead of your multimeter on one of the black wires and the other probe of your multimeter on the tab in the lamp socket. Did it beep or show a zero or small number on the display? That's the wire you connect to the hot lead coming out of your house (should be the black wire). The one that's continuous to ground gets grounded and the one that's continuous with the threaded part of the socket is your neutral.

Looking at the picture I'm not sure why there's black wires coming out of the lamp socket and going to ground. The fixture should be grounded to the junction box but the lamp sockets themselves shouldn't need a ground wire. You're only grounding the chassis/housing. The socket itself, at least the ones I've seen, doesn't have a ground. I'm wondering if they're both hots or you said you replaced the lamp holders on the housing maybe one of the black wires you have going to ground went to the motion sensor?

The two blacks shouldn’t go to your ground. If I was taking a wild guess all those blacks should be together.
Is that a brand new fixture you’re hanging or used? A fixture will still light even without a ground. Leave your yellow ground as is but remove the two black wires. Light will likely light with just 2 of those blacks. The other 2 would likely tie into red which you don’t have. You use red wire when you have 2 switches controlling the same light. In this case you don’t have a secondary switch to control that light. This is just a guess but I have dabbled heavily and wired a couple houses. (Remodeling with the homies).

It's not hot to ground, I just needed some wires to connect the ground and used non-hot black wiring...

By any chance in a million you didn’t accidentally hook one of your grounds up to the hot in the wall did you? Like the black ground didn’t mistakenly get hooked up to the black coming out of the wall. I’m 99 there’s a short to a ground to instantly kick your breaker as soon as you throw the switch.

The extra blacks are ground wire stogie added

NINE! teen

Edit: I'll bet one of the bulb sockets has a short in it. Replace it and it will work perfectly. Might be some cheap Chinese stuff so return the faulty fixture to Home Depot and get your $20 back.

I hear you, but I don't think so. Initially I only had the single green/ yellow ground wire connected and it tripped the breaker. I saw a green screw inside each bulb housing and figured I would try connecting them to the main ground as well... didn't solve the problem. I am thinking that I may have dislodged the wall-to-fixture box ground wire, so I will go up into the attic this weekend and see from the back.

Don't confuse Nuetral and ground. As mentioned you prolly don't even need a Ground.
A meter should tell you everything you need to know. If not pull the switch out and look at the wire colors there.

Was this fixed? If not I might be able to help.

May be too late. I saw smoke rising from Stogie's area

Twenty NINE!

Another thought,

Wire in a MOSFET transpositor to create an ODM bypass. The metal oxide should suppress sinusoidal repleneration and correct any cross phase reluctance. Tie the tertiary output to the lunar wane shaft to prevent any back EMF duractance.

Or buy a meter.

I won't have a chance to work on it until this weekend. It's 25 feet up on a ladder so I have to time it for when the kids are not around or they will likely seize the opportunity to yank the ladder out and put an end to me once and for all... Wifey may or may not be complicit.

It's all ball bearings nowadays. Now you prepare that Fetzer valve with some 3-in-1 oil and some gauze pads, and I'm gonna need 'bout ten quarts of anti-freeze, preferably Prestone. No, no make that Quaker State.

Try ChatGPT.

🤔 what it look like stogie?

Great outcome, well done.

Thanks Gene.

Forget my psychic, I am coming to you next time, Bucky!

LOL, true, true...

That's where the current fixture and wiring was, so that's where it stays...

Here kitty kitty...

We get bobcats on the regular, not sure I want to see a mountain lion though. Seems like a different potential outcome.

I just have to run faster than the wife and kids....