Hi All,
I've got a open neutral line in a circuit.
The VOM can read the voltage across the bare copper ground and the hot lead but it does not register any voltage between the insulated neutral and the hot lead.
What's the best way to troubleshoot this?
Start at the breaker and proceed down the line, follow where it goes, open any boxes along the way. The most likely source of a problem is where there is a connection, eg wire coming out of a back-stabbed receptacle, etc.
Yup that is the way to go. Start by identifying any outlets (receptacle or lighting) on that circuit that are working and then try to figure out where the problem is. It will usually be in the last good one if not the first bad one. OTOH it might be in the wall where the two halves join. They allow Enerflex (?) devices in modular homes, the only place in the code that I know of that allows a buried splice. That is an insulation displacement splicing device that plugs the modules together.
Sounds good to me.
I would start by finding all the recepticals without power. Then go to each one and plug a lamp or something into both of the sockets one at a time. Sometimes one socket will be powered and the other one will not because of a bad connection, or in one case I found there is a jumper from one of the sockets to the other and it had burnt into .
Might as well do the very simple things first. If that does not work, then it is like Trader said, open up each one and look.
Hopefully you can just take the cover plate off and get to the screws of the receptical that have thw wires.
A loose connection is a common problem. You could have one in the circuit breaker panel or in any outlet, switch, or light on that circuit. Too often it is the outlet that has had the wires pushed into the spring loaded connections in the back rather than the screw terminals on the side that is the culprit. I usually ask my customers where they plug the vacuum cleaner in. From experience I have learned that the outlet that gets used frequently with a large load is likely the problem outlet. It is also possible that the problem is in more than one outlet. I would start at the breaker panel and tighten every connection on the neutral bar, the ground bar, and each circuit breaker. After that I would open up every outlet on that circuit, even the ones that still work. Many times I have removed an outlet and a wire will just come out of the back spring connection.
Since this is a mobile home it is possible that it was wired without standard electrical boxes and splices. Many mobile homes are wired with self-contained wiring devices and can be a PITA to troubleshoot.
John Grabowski
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