plug testers not right??

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brother

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I had been trouble shooting a receptacle that had stopped working as it was working before. Stuck in my plug tester and it tells me 'hot and ground reversed'. i said this cant be right, so i used my other plug tester (i had 2) same thing, 'hot and ground reversed'. I still say this cant be right.

then i took my meter and check it, and checked hot to neutral , no voltage, hot to ground, no voltage, ground to neutral has voltage!!

I think its more of an open neutral than a hot ground. But a little more trouble shootin needs to be done. Cause wouldnt the breaker trip on this ground being the hot wire assuming its bonded all the way back??
 
I will say that it can show hot/neutral reversal and they mix-up could be upstream. That being said, I have had similar readings in the past. Best bet is to start taking it apart (the circuit) and see where the problem starts. Fixing is usually easy. Finding is the pain.
 
I've seen that before. Nuetral has enough juice to light the plug-in tester up.

Another one I've seen before, all three lights lit up. Somebody's hooked the 120v circuit up 240v. Funny as long as nothing gets zingered.
 
I've seen some brands of testers to that on a GFI recep. Never found out what caused it. I just bought another brand and never looked back.
 
I've been out of the field to long to remember, but I agree that it might be an open neutral, or a neutral and hot reversed, which will not cause you any real problems.
 
brother said:
Yes it was an open neutral. I just cant seem to figure out why this so called 'plug testers' couldnt tell me that. It has a diagram on the tester to show what an open neutral looks like on it.

Oh well maybe just a cheap brand or something.
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I have found that an open neutral with a load will often read as "hot and ground reversed" on a plug - in tester.
 
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