jea48

Responses from jea48

Line fault at the outlet -- do I need an electrician?
hilde45 OP299 posts 03-25-2020 12:26pm OP again:I’m pretty sure I unplugged everything on the chain of outlets.I have not thrown the breaker yet.All outlets on chain read as reversed:* the negative plug input reads as 120v, more or less* the pos... 
Line fault at the outlet -- do I need an electrician?
@ cissado cissado19 posts 03-23-2020 11:26am 2 tips. Be conscious of any switches outlets when testing, so there are no surprises.When trying to find the first receptacle box, you can disconnect one pair of wires from the receptacle. THEN reap... 
Line fault at the outlet -- do I need an electrician?
Al, (almarg),I drew 3 vertical parallel lines on a piece of paper. One representing the Hot, one for the neutral and the other the equipment ground. At the top of the drawing I drew a horizontal line connecting both the neutral line and equipment ... 
Line fault at the outlet -- do I need an electrician?
almarg9,459 posts 03-23-2020 2:59pm Hilde45, when you measured the 4 volts while the system was plugged in, were the components in the system turned on, or were they turned off or at least in standby? And as far as you know was anything else tha... 
Line fault at the outlet -- do I need an electrician?
@ hilde45 Would you please tell us what make and model your multimeter is? Please!Does it have an auto scale? Is that what you used when you read/measured the 4 volts AC? Are you sure it was 4 Volts or was it possibly 4mv ( 4 millivolts) Or did yo... 
Line fault at the outlet -- do I need an electrician?
hilde45 OP288 posts 03-23-2020 11:44am The reason I’m curious now, as I think I mentioned, is that I’m trying out my audio gear and have been shoved to an inconvenient side of my room because of this polarity problem; so, a fix would be helpful... 
Line fault at the outlet -- do I need an electrician?
@ cissadoGood post except in the case of where the duplex receptacle device may have been used as a junction for the make up of neutral and Hot conductors coming in and going out of the outlet box. We don’t know what type of wiring materials/metho... 
Line fault at the outlet -- do I need an electrician?
Guys, way to much time has been spent on this thread about the OP measuring a difference of potential, voltage, of 4 volts, from the neutral to the equipment ground contact on the receptacle outlet. His biggest problem is reversed AC polarity he ... 
Line fault at the outlet -- do I need an electrician?
Correction: jea483,299 posts 03-22-2020 2:57pm Also as I said previously. 1) VD, (Voltage Drop), on the neutral conductor due to the connected load on the branch circuit.2) An induced voltage that is/may be created by the hot and neutral curren... 
Line fault at the outlet -- do I need an electrician?
hilde45 OP As far as finding the outlet closest to the panel is a bit tricky, as the wire which feeds things disappears into the ceiling and I'm not sure where it goes first. I'm sure where the 3rd, 4th outlets are, but not the 1st, 2nd ones... 
Line fault at the outlet -- do I need an electrician?
almarg9,456 posts 03-22-2020 2:11pm @Hilde45, when you measured the 4 volt difference between safety ground and the miswired "hot" terminal on the outlets was some or all of the equipment plugged in at the time? If so, I think it would be worthw... 
Line fault at the outlet -- do I need an electrician?
hilde45 OP283 posts    03-22-2020     12:14pm    Thanks, Jim. Later today, I will probably try this. Or tomorrow.Before I proceed -- I want to be clear that so far I have tested multiple outlets on this daisy chain -- they all read as reversed.I ... 
Line fault at the outlet -- do I need an electrician?
@ hilde45 OP Ok. 
Line fault at the outlet -- do I need an electrician?
@ hilde45 OP As djones51 said, start with the wall duplex receptacle you tested that has the reversed polarity. (Hot and neutral wires reversed on the outlet device.)Make 100% sure the breaker that feeds the outlet is turned off. Plug a lamp into ... 
Line fault at the outlet -- do I need an electrician?
heaudio123135 posts   03-20-2020    8:58am   "3) Measure for voltage from the equipment ground contact to the neutral contact. The neutral contact is the larger of the two slotted holes on the outlet. Make sure the two DMM probes are making good...