Getting a slight shock from fixture. When checked with my Klein ncvt I get voltage present on outside of fixture

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jbgood60

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Arlington, tx. U.S.
When I found my box where four conductors are connected to the homerun I removed power and separated all the wires, when I check for continuity from my homerun wire to ground/neutral I have none, same goes to the remaining conductors.
But when I put at least two conductors (any two) back together I get an intermittent beeping on my multimeter which to me indicates continuity.
I have spent 4 days chasing this problem down, I'm at a loss any advice would be appreciated.
A little more back story, there is switched and non switched fixtures (night lights and exit lights from emergency panel) from two different panels in the race way ( which I thought was not allowed by code), separate neutrals and hot wires. When we check neutral to neutral and neutral to ground from the different panels we have continuity steady beep on multimeter, when we check neutrals to hot wires we get the intermittent beeping.
Again when I found the box where the conduits come together and start into one conduit I can separate the conductors and everything is clear.
I can check one circuit heading to regular panel all clear, but checking the other circuit heading to emergency panel I get the intermittent beeping till I separate the 4 conductors tied to my homerun. One more thing, I get this across 11 of 14 fixtures.
Hope I making sense,
Thanks in advance for any help.
JB
 
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jbgood60 said:
I can check one circuit heading to regular panel all clear, but checking the other circuit heading to emergency panel I get the intermittent beeping till I
Thanks in advance for any help.
JB
Click to expand...

All I can suggest at this point is as you mentioned 2 Panels, one sounds like its the regular lighting circuit possibly controlled by switching or timer/s and the other panel sounds like its an emergency panel solely intended to kick in during a power outage which would have a generated or battery source of some sort.

From my experience there are different terminologies to be used, one being a conduit may be going toward a panel but the circuitry is coming from the panel. This is an understanding which makes troubleshooting much easier to understand. My take from your explanation would be you have 2 panels feeding 1 fixture x 14 . Maybe you said it that way if so my mistake. Be careful that stuff can kill.
 
Depending on your meter an intermittent beep while in the ohms or condituity indicates you have voltage present.

It Sounds like you may have a bootlegged neutral connection. Someone just grabbed a neutral to make things work, ignoring which panel it went to, and/or they just put all the whites together in every box. because they were white.
 
I once had a sprinkler controller that was energizing the circuit from a 9V battery fed through the onboard transformer. Spent some time figuring that one out.
 
ptonsparky said:
Depending on your meter an intermittent beep while in the ohms or condituity indicates you have voltage present.

It Sounds like you may have a bootlegged neutral connection. Someone just grabbed a neutral to make things work, ignoring which panel it went to, and/or they just put all the whites together in every box. because they were white.
Click to expand...
Or a bootlegged EGC and voltage drop on the neutral is the volts imposed on the luminaire housing. If metal raceway and complete and in good condition that chance probably isn't so great though.
 
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