120V light fixture only has 8V?

[rtz]

Metal conduit to it and 2 "sheathed" cables going out? Light switch on wall seems to have no effect?

Short of calling in an electrician; how would he go about tracing the light fixture and switch?






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Bonus image. What's inside?



Nothing!?



Where's the breaker panel at? Outside!

 

[bobbyjean]

how bout putting a bulb in,sorry couldn't resist
can you remove the fixture from box and check voltage from there....sounds like you are reading a neutral only...

 

[rtz]

I'll pull the fixture tomorrow and take a reading.

 

[wyliesdiesels]

Did this fixture work before?

 

[rtz]

I don't know when it last worked if it ever did. Opened it up and it looks worse inside then I imagined it would. Not a big fan of "tape". Measures under 9 volts at the terminals. Can't imagine how a 120 circuit could measure out at that.

 

[dogdog]

the last time when my circuit did something like that, my neutral was broken or shorted to ground.... either case those wires look nasty... I would just change it out.

how I did mine was... I used a contactless sitck and identify the circuit breaker, shut that off.. and shut off the whole panel, confirm no more live electrimacity . then used a extension cord and run it back to the panel and see which neutral , ground or line etc... with continuity... for shorts , grounded, etc. But I know the approximation where the wires go... a bit different from your problem.

For the really old basement wires that looked like yours, I just follow the line from one junction box to another and map it out.

 

[rtz]

The problem with these "lines" is they all disappear into walls. Could I use a "toner" to trace the wires(never used one before)?

I tested other 120 outlets in the room and they were all stable and non wondering at 120 volts. This less than 9 volts; the voltage climbs and falls. Like 8.50v to 8.80v.

Also using this tester in an outlet in the backyard; it was reading "open ground".

http://a.co/fEfJeAU

 

[dogdog]

Never had any success with a toner... but I just used this thing in conjunction with the voltmeter and a spool of wire/extension cords.... not sure how others does it...

https://www.homedepot.com/p/Klein-Tools-Non-Contact-Voltage-Tester-NCVT-1SEN/100661787

maybe just logically thinking this through?

something like these questions to ask yourself

1) is this a problem with the multimeter getting some transient/ghost voltage ? is the hot wire live means you have open ground / open neutral ?
2) is this outlet share the same circuit breaker as other outlet in the same room? or which circuit breaker is this outlet protected by?
3) if it is shared, is this outlet the closest to the circuit breaker or furthest ? why? usually if they shared, they run parallel in series to the other outlets (not sure if I describe this correctly)...

you know some questions to those extend to help you logically work through it

maybe at this point you should hire an electrician and see what they say.... Not sure....

 

[laser3kw]

Short of calling in an electrician

 

[DieselNut88]

Check incoming power at switch and go from there. If no breaker is tripped the switch may be bad.