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Electrical Wiring

Circuit tester lied!

10 years ago

After wiring a string of receptacles in my basement, I checked them all out with a circuit tester and found that after receptacle 4, the tester said "hot and ground reversed". I pulled out that receptacle and noticed that the neutral wire coming in had become disconnected. Reconnecting it fixed the problem, but the tester should have said "open neutral" (which was one of the possible answers).

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Comments (5)

randy427
10 years ago
At least it told you that something wasn't right.
mtvhike
Original Author
10 years ago
Yes, it made me investigate!
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Ron Natalie
10 years ago
Especially when you have a length of wire disconnected at the far end, it can read as HOT when it's nothing.
mtvhike
Original Author
10 years ago
Aha! How can it read hot if there is nothing drawing current connected? Well, there is. One of the downstream receptacles is a USB charger built in, so that would provide enough leakage current to make the disconnected neutral wire hot.
Ron Natalie
10 years ago
The thing is still a relatively high impedance neon bulb. It doesn't take much. Hell, I've got a tester that's a similar bulb in a screwdriver and your body will provide sufficient coupling to light the bulb.

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