Wafer lights vs. sheetrocker

Lightly staple your whips up and record your measurements for each bay they are in. Take lots of pictures. I don't let the drywall guys determine where my lights go unless I install the wafer pans.

I’ve heard from several guys here and at the supply house that those wafer rough in plates are the real deal.

New construction shoot them with a laser and put a drywall screw in the floor and circle with paint. get your whips or drivers close by

I always use rough-in plates to force the sheetrocker to cut them out because I surely don't want to cut a bunch of holes in sheetrock regardless of how I do it. I'm an electrician not a sheetrocker.

You could have a series of calls, emails, or meetings with the GC, come up with a plan for the layout, hope that he understands the plan, hope that he actually mentions the plans to the sheetrock contractor, hope the sheetrock contractor explains it to his people, hope they understand the instructions (may involve hoping the sheetrock contractor is bilingual and sufficiently fluent to discuss layout) and hope the guys are paid enough to give a rats ass about following instructions and hope they're sobered up enough to actually follow their instructions correctly the day they hang the sheetrock.

Or, you could use the rough-in plates.

I don't like the roughin plates because I can holesaw a hole better than sheetrockers can rotozip. Not much tolerance on hole size with wafers

If the drywallers **** the bed zipping their holes, it's on them.
If you lose your measurements or have the hole saw jump and wreck the drywall, it's on you.. as is the repair.

That's an extra pile of hours you have to spend marking, drilling and cleaning up(potentially over a finished floor).. not worth the headache.
We tried it on a few jobs, marked and drilled out ourselves because the drywallers sucked.. and switched back to rough in plates.

I'll leave whips hanging for soffit pots, only because they never have enough framing to put the plates up.

Another vote for the rough in plates. It gives everyone time to take a look at the layout and change things. Moving a rough in plate is easier than moving a hole in sheet rock. Granted you won’t be the one to patch the old holes (hopefully) but still.

Make the drywallers cut the holes as soon as they put it up. Trades are supposed to cooperate, so bust some balls!

Most of the time we come in weeks after it is sheet rocked so the rockers are long gone and paid. Look at the skillset of many of the rockers and ask your self who really is going to make the cut out look good? Nowadays people are very picky of the cabinets and furniture layout and never can give exact locations. That is why I prefer to leave lots of slack in the cable and cut my own holes out after it is painted. I have a circle cutter that I need to replace and it works extremely well. I use the blue painter's tape on the floor or cabinet and shoot a laser up then mark the ceiling also with blue tape and a marker. I ask for confirmation then I cut. It takes about 30 seconds to cut a hole. No mess and all the dust is caught in the clear plastic housing.

A hole saw for your multi tool. Since it doesn't spin it won't damage the romex.

Rackatiers also has a product called pok-e which is a strap to keep your cable stub out in place so the sheetrocker just has to pull it through.