110 volts at the outlet; nothing plugged-in works

Shouldn't be. How can you tell that you have 120 volts at the outlet? If you test between the hot and the ground, it should trip the GFCI. If you test between the hot and neutral and get 120, it should work. Try another lamp

Check the voltage on both the positive and neutral with reference to ground to make sure you don't have 110V on both poles.

How are you testing it? Using a digital meter???

Loose connection, may just be right there.

Why not just replace the receptacle? I am thinking glassed-in porch might have more temperature extremes, condensation, etc. and there might be corrosion on the little contacts that hold the plug in - the sharp probes of your Fluke might scratch through it but a plug might not. Or the contacts might have lost their "spring" - I have a few like that in my house. (down from many when I moved in.) Either way, probably worth it to just replace it with a good spec-grade receptacle and be done with it.

Unless this is physically the last device on the circuit, the fault is almost certainly with the receptacle itself.

nate

Is it STILL 110 volts with the lamp plugged in?

This is only vaguely related, but I bought a partial DC to AC converter at a hamfest. Rated at 75 watts. It was missing the center button and maybe the fuse from the plug that fit into the cigarette lighter. The guy had dozens of them with the same problem. Four dollars each iirc.

I managed to find a button and a spring, and decide the fuse wasn't missing, and I tried it with a 15 watt table radio. The green led turned red every time and nothing came out of the radio. I tried several times, same result.

So I found a 5 watt radio and that worked. They I tried 40, 60, and even 75 watt regular incandescent bulbs, and the 75 cycled bright and then a bit dim, but the other bulbs were good.

Now I really didn't understand why the 15 watt radio didn't work, and I tried it again, and it did.

Who knows why!

Now I'm not sure I have any use for this, but maybe. I have a bigger converter somewhere, but this is small enough to keep in the car. I think it was made for a laptop computer -- it has the brand of a computer company -- so there should be good voltage stability, except at the full 75 watts. Or maybe not. Maybe the laptop does its own voltage regulation.

You should have 110V BOTH WAYS. If not, you got a bad wire somewhere.

-OR-

It's uncommon, but something inside the outlet might be broken. Rather than screw around with it, spend a buck and replace it, since it's already out of the wall anyhow. Outlets wear out over time so replacement is a good idea.

Last thought, did you plug you lamp into BOTH the top and bottom plug on the duplex outlet? You cound have one of those little jumpers broken (in which case, replace the outlet).

I'd like to hear what you find out. Post a followup.

Mark

My first thought is bad connection on the neutral. Or the hot. Sometimes a VOM will read electricity when there isn't enough power to run a light.

Wonder if it's got back stabbed connections?

Yeah, and if its a digital meter, who knows what its reading. Digitals are fine for electronics, but for basic AC, I'll take an analog any day. Even those cheapie neon testers work just fine.

One just needs to know how to use them.