ECN Forum Forums General Topics of the Trade General Discussion Area Light fixture on new porch post.

A wall mounted carriage type residential light fixture mounted on a post of a porch. I want the wiring concealed in the post (it will be coming from the ceiling of the porch). The post are too small to put a box in (6x6 with a wrap - though I want them to use a constructed post that is hollow in the middle). If we can bring a cable down in the post to a surface box of some sort. Is there a surface box that 1. is shallow, 2. finished looking from the sides??
Ideas?

If this is a square post, you can use a pancake box and it usually will be covered by the canopy of the lamp.
I had some aluminum posts that were suitable for splices and I took the canopy off, drilled the post for 1/8" pipe and installed the luminaire directly to the post with a cap on top that made the splice accessible.

I have to do that kind of thing fairly often with the 6X6 wrapped porch posts. Usually one on each side at the top of the stairs leading up to the porch from grade level. I’ll use a hole saw to recess a 4" ceiling pan and drill down through the top of the post above the ceiling line then fish my wire down to the opening. I like to use a black button RX connector in one of the upper KO’s of the ceiling pan that are offset to the side, but not the center KO as that tends to get in the way of the fixture stud when using those shallow pan boxes. I will normally run each switch leg directly back to the switch location, so I only have one RX cable in each post to deal with when I make up the boxes and mount the fixtures.

Can you router the wrap enough to sink the pancake box inside it?

We see a lot of pancakes surface mounted in the block wall next to the door. The canopy of the luminaire seems to cover it.