Thread: Candelabra

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I'm working on a candelabra for this up coming Halloween. Here's the first stage of it,



I have 5 120V AC electric candles from JoAnn fabrics. I don't want 5 plugs to plug into an outlet. So my question is, does anyone know how to take all 5 of these cords and put them into one plug, safely?

just splice them together.

I use solder and heat shrink, but wire nuts and electrical tape works as well.

cut the wires and seperate them into hot and neutral groups. there is usally a stripe or ribbed wire in each pair, these are one group, the other group is the without.

Yeah, Follow Bradbaum's suggestion. I used wire nuts for a similar situation and was quick & easy. If you go with wire nuts just look for ones that are big enough since it would have 5 wires plus the wire going to the outlet.

So linking them all together isn't going to pull too many amps or something and catch the thing on fire?

How many watts are the bulbs?

As long as (Bulb Watts*qty)/Volts= <15 Amps, then there should not be a problem.

Do make certain any wire you may add after the 5 pairs are combined and your plug meet the needs of the combined Amp draw.

I think you would be ok, these look like small individual candles, and each should only draw very small amounts . One thing to think about though is once you wire it up how are you going to hide the wires? My suggestion is to either paint them a flat black before hand and wrap them tightly to the stem or run them all down one side and wrap tightly in a flat black tape. Another suggestion is to disasemble a battery powered tea light and mount the internals inside each candle, that way you have NO wires and NO problems hiding the wires.

You could do something like this....

Floating Candelabra / Date picture by Coldshivers - Photobucket

These were done with real candles and everything was hidden behind the candle. You could also easily hide the same inside a plastic candle which I think they are in your pic.

Yeah, I'm planning on getting plaster and dripping it down each candle for that awesome look. When I'm done I'll post. Here's a pic of the wires wrapped around the middle bar of the candelabra.

You should be fine wiring them into one plug. What i would do is join them in a small junction or project box then attach the cord at the junction. If you put them all into on plug it will be hard to make repairs later.

Here we go. So I just went with the easiest thing. A nice trip to the scary side of town and guys a radio shack that had no idea what a junction box was.....

I just put a Wire Connector (Wire Nut?) with all the cords, negative and minus seperate, together and now it's workin awesome!! I replaced those lame Christmas bulbs with the flickering flame bulbs! Look!

So, now it's burning fine, no melting or smoke or fires, yet, lol. Painting and then the wax! more to come!