They’re designed to have their mounting panel fasten directly against drywall, or into a lighting electrical junction box, or both. Once the mounting panel is up the LED panel slides onto it, almost flush to the surface the mounting panel is on:
I want to use these to replace fluorescent light fixtures in my garage ceiling. Two of the new LED panels would fit in the space of one of the old fixtures.
The ceiling doesn’t have a light fixture box in it for the fluorescents - the power just comes out of a hole in the ceiling and goes into the fixture that is screwed to the ceiling:
Not a problem to mount one LED panel using that, but if I want to put two panels up in the same space I’m going to have to wire them in parallel and I don’t see a way I can run wires between the LED fixtures (due to that “flush against the ceiling” mount).
So do I need to install two lighting junction boxes in the ceiling in order to power 2 LED panels from that one drop?
You might have to open it up, put in some bracing and install the box and patch it up. Your new fixture may cover what you need to open. Do you have any kind of camera with a light you can get in there and look around?
I installed flat panels like those in my kitchen three years ago. they are very reliable, very bright and the ones I got had adjustable color temp. the one caveat is they are a PITA to clean.
Since they have such a large footprint, I suggest cutting out a hole big enough to slip a cell phone camera into and snap some pix. Dont even really have to patch up the hole too good either, if you don’t want..
Install a junction box recessed in the ceiling, where the existing wire comes into the existing fixture. Then, you’ll need to determine which way the ceiling joists run in the ceiling.
If the joists run the same direction as the way you want to mount the new fixtures next to each other, then it would very easy to snake a wire from the recess junction box, over to the next fixture, though the ceiling space.
Even if you had to cut out a little bit of sheetrock, to get through the ceiling joist (if it runs perpendicular to the fixtures), that’s an easy project too.
