Bottlehead Forum

All right, good to know.

75.170.133.88

In Reply to: RE: Yes, ST35 has a 3 prong plug posted by dbishopbliss on April 16, 2008 at 19:01:48

Still, it doesn't pay to assume anything, so let's start at the plug strip you are using.

Unplug everything from the strip, but leave the strip plugged in. Then, as you look at one of the outlets on the strip (here's the place where some visuals would be handy), you'll see a wider slot, a narrower slot, and a rounded hole. The rounded hole should be ground. The narrower slot will be hot, and the wider slot will be neutral. Measuring from the narrow slot to the wide slot should be line voltage (~120 Volts AC). Your probes may not want to fit into the slots, but if you move them around a bit, they should eventually make contact with the metal in the outlet slots. Take every precaution not to allow the metal parts of your probes to touch each other during this, of course!

Then, measure from the narrower slot to the rounded hole. You will then be measuring from Hot to Ground, and you will once again get line voltage.

Then measure from the wider slot to ground. This will be neutral to ground, and should essentially read zero, or low miliVolts.

If the first outlet you try checks out, then repeat for the other outlets on the strip, to make sure that they all behave as indicated. If they do not, then you will unplug the strip and check the outlet in the same fashion. If they do, we can move on to the FP.

Take your time and make sure that the metal parts of the probes don't touch each other, or any part of you when you are doing this!

I know this may seem a little painstaking, but this is just part of the elimination process, and safety it paramount! In fact, it wouldn't hurt to have someone else around for this part, and, if you have a pair of gloves that you would be comfortable wearing for this type of work, that wouldn't be a bad idea, either.

We are breaking one of the old rules about not using both hands to take measurements, but I'm not sure that I see any alternative in this case. So, if you feel the least bit uncomfortable checking your outlets in this fashion, please do not do so, and we'll talk about the outlet checker again.

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