Garage light only lights up when you hit it. Make your guess as to the cause!

[SluggerB]

The flood light over my garage was hanging out of the house due to the previous moron not knowing how to anchor it correctly. So I fixed that today

I then go to turn the light on tonight, and it doesn't stay on. If I tap it with a piece of wood, the lights come on for a sec them dim. Repeated tapping will cause it to eventually start working, until the switch is flipped, then it's a 50/50 shot it will work again or need to be tapped to start

So tomm begins the diagnosis. What do you think it is? Vote now!

A: A loose connection in a wire nut. I tugged on them to make sure they were snug, but the amount of wire exposed from the insulation was kinda short. Maybe screwing the wire nut on pushed it down and make a flaky connection?

B: Damage to the supply line. I had to mount the box in there by building out a little frame to hold it and tapping it in place with a hammer. Maybe I pinched a wire when installing the box?

C: Bad fixture. The thing is probably mid 70's and could have some loose internal connection

Vote away, I will be taking it apart tomm and will report back with what I find

[SluggerB]

Re: Garage light only lights up when you hit it. Make your guess as to the cause!

It was the fixture, specifically the motion/light sensor. I opened it up and got to the board and water must have gotten in there at some point, the sensor was all rusty. I tried to clean it and reflow as much as I could, reassembled the light, but it still required tapping on the sensor to get the lights to come on, and shortly after it broke completely.

So I rewired the fixture to bypass the sensor and now it operates as a normal switched light (which I actually prefer anyway)