Hey all,
I am hoping you can point me in the right direction.
I have one outlet 120v, that shows a open neutral when i plug a small 3 light tester into it. I comes directly from a switch. I have replaced both the switch and the outlet with no luck. I have checked all the other outlets on the same breaker and find none that test open neutral. I am kinda at a loss and stuck on what to do in the next step of troubleshooting.
Thanks
Mike
Assuming the outlet isn't switch via switchleg (hot going to the switch on black, switched hot coming back on white), I check the splice / wirenut for the neutral in the switch box.
It still shouldn't show an open neutral even if it *is* switched, unless some idiot put the switch in the neutral instead of in the hot where it belongs.
-- Regards, Doug Miller (alphageek at milmac dot com)
Nobody ever left footprints in the sands of time by sitting on his butt. And who wants to leave buttprints in the sands of time?
Yeah, but the neutral's not going to be feeding from the switch box in a switchleg configuration, it's going to be feeding from the next upstream box, whatever that is. I was basically trying to say "find the next upstream box that is feeding your outlet power, and check the neutral splice", but didn't phrase it worth a damn.
Okay... but that still doesn't have anything at all to do with whether the outlet is controlled by a switch, or not.
-- Regards, Doug Miller (alphageek at milmac dot com)
Nobody ever left footprints in the sands of time by sitting on his butt. And who wants to leave buttprints in the sands of time?
Sure it does. The OP said that it was a switched outlet, so the most likely location for the nearest neutral splice is in the switch box. Unless it's a switchleg switch. And around we go...
It's *exactly* the same situation as in the case of an unswitched outlet that is fed from the next-nearest outlet. His problem with an open neutral has
*nothing* to do with this being a switched outlet. Unless, as I said, some idiot has wired the switch into the neutral side instead of the hot.-- Regards, Doug Miller (alphageek at milmac dot com)
Nobody ever left footprints in the sands of time by sitting on his butt. And who wants to leave buttprints in the sands of time?
Doug, *I* know it's the same thing, and *you* know it's the same thing. However, the OP tried to fix an open neutral by replacing a switch, fer crying out loud. How the heck do I explain how to find the "next upstream neutral splice" without invoking the switch box that evidently at least controls part of the outlet? On the job site,with something to point to, I could explain it in under a minute. With nothing but text, I gotta do what I can.
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