ECN Forum Forums General Topics of the Trade General Discussion Area Strange reading on plug tester

Had all light up once when I did some outlets at a factory. My first thought was oh no what did I do. Had some strange voltage readings too.

Turned out it was a problem with the B crew installing the transformer and panel. I did not do it or fix it but I think they forgot to bond the nutral and conect the G-rod.

Tom

I had this happen once not lonag a go. It turned out to be a tripped GFCI down stream from the recptical, don't know why but reseting the GFCI solved the problem. Rod

The GFCI opens the neutral and if that doesn't "close" properly you get all sorts of strange things on an outlet tester, depending on downstream load.

Was back at that house today. Found that a painer decided the inside of a junction box needed a lot of paint. Cover missing and half full of paint. Took me half an hour to clean out. Also found all the ground wires in the box but one together, the one not in was the one to the panel. So I had lost the ground back tothe panel. Also the bare ground was under a neutral wire nut just touching the neutral wires stripped end. Found 3 GFCI full of paint as well. None of those GFCI were on the bedrooms circuit. After fixing all of this every thing is now normal.


Now if I can just find that painter when I have a 3 foot piece of 3/4 rigid in hand

editd for spelling

[This message has been edited by nesparky (edited 02-04-2006).]