Help with wiring, lighting and circuit breakers

Question

i have a traffic light (don't ask why or how) and i had it wired so that when i plugged it in all 3 lights would turn on, then i rewired it so that the lights could be plugged in individually, but now when i plug in 2 light or more at once the circuit breaker goes off (which didn't happen when they were all on one plug)

any ideas why??

Answer 1

It sounds like you have a short in the light.  3 bulbs shouldn't, and you say didn't in the past, cause the circuit breaker to trip.  Make sure the thing is unplugged and exam the wiring carefully.  There has to be a problem somewhere.  There's probably 4 wires, 1 common wire and 3 hot wires each going to a separate light.  To cause a light to turn on, you need to connect the common and the hot wire for that light.  When you rewired it you may have mixed the common in with a hot or something.  This would be a short when you turned it on.  Make sure there's no stray wires sticking out somewhere that could cause a short.  Everything should be neat and tight.  

For your room or inside a house, replace any larger bulbs with 60 watt ones.  You don't need 100 watt bulbs in the light for display purposes.  You could even try 40 watt bulbs.