36v in a 120v Circuit.

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Fmkehoe

Senior Member
Location
Cornwall ny USA
Occupation
Inspector
Exterior flood lights stopped working. Checked the bulbs, they were good. Checked the voltage it was 36 V. What would cause that if no other changes happened to the electric anywhere.?
 

growler

Senior Member
Location
Atlanta,GA
Inside the bulb socket
I put the light on test mode

The light controller has probably gone bad but it's a good idea to take the light loose from the junction box and test the power coming in.

It's a flood light and at the very least you are probably going to have connections that are very corroded. But you need to make sure you have 120 V coming in to the fixture. It may have come loose at another junction box or back at a switch.
 

kwired

Electron manager
Location
NE Nebraska
Exterior flood lights stopped working. Checked the bulbs, they were good. Checked the voltage it was 36 V. What would cause that if no other changes happened to the electric anywhere.?
Something had to change somewhere. Just because you didn't intentionally change something there are likely many possible places that something might have change but was not noticed. High resistance could have developed in a connection in many possible places in either grounded or ungrounded conductor and caused what you described. A dimmer switch could have been installed, is usually in full brightness position but has been moved to a dimmed position now and maybe would do same thing.

If you go back to source or where branch circuit originates and have correct voltage there, then there has to be something beyond that point that has more resistance than it did at one time (presuming it did work correctly at one time).
 

roger

Moderator
Staff member
Location
Fl
Occupation
Retired Electrician
If you do not find anything with the advice given you should call a local EC, with that said I am closing this thread in accordance with the forum rules.

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Roger​
 
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