Installing florescent fixtures?

Question

My electrician ran away after half job done. I am left with 10 T5 fixtures which should go to cove in the bedroom. I need to connect them to one wire end he left. which goes to a lutron dimming switch. I am so confused with this. question is can I connect the fixtures to each other and at the end connect last fixture two wires to line wire or I have to connect each fixture to the line ?. I want all light to operate on one switch. each fixture has electronic ballast. How to operate with dimmer ?

Answer 1

Mike covered it very well. The only input I have is that you have to make sure that the fixtures have a dimmable ballast with them. There have been situations where you can dim down a standard electronic ballast but the manufacturer will void any warranty if the ballast is not compatible with the dimmer.

Answer 2

Assuming he didn't totally mess up, the dimmer and the ballasts have to work together and the special dimmer costs a small fortune.  I would double check them before going forward, perhaps by calling Lutron or a local distributor.

All the fixtures are connected in parallel, so wire has to run to each fixture and be connected to the black and another run to each fixture and be connected to the white.  The white wire goes to the neutral and the black to the dimmer unless the dimmer calls for something more complicated.  

  The biggest mess is that all these connections should be inside metal - a junction box for each fixture or inside the metal case of the fixture which means you are going to be cutting at least 11 pieces of Romex a foot or more longer than the fixtures, stripping the wires on each and using a lot of wire nuts and doing this either while standing on a ladder or by wiring them on the floor in sets of 2-3 or 4 depending on what help you have to put them up and then the final connections made up there.  

  You might call an electrician or your code people and ask whether you can plug them in, so you put a cord on each fixture and run that to a power strip and then wire the dimmer to the power strip.  Makes testing and moving much easier and it can be done in a shop or warehouse environment, but I don't know about in the cove of a house.