Hello I don't have much residential 110 experience. I have a bed rom with a series of outlets first works fine after that between black and white I have 85 volts, hot to ground reads 120 and neutral to ground reads 30. My thought is there is a bad cable. Could it the first receptacle be bad?
Thanks
JD

I would check the voltage on the outgoing side of the first outlet. If that's 120, go to the next outlet and see if you have 120 coming into the outlet. just follow the voltage down the wall until you can narrow it down.

You have an open neutral -- one of the working outlets has a failed neutral connection feeding out .
This is typical when using the push back feature on the outlets .
Replace outlets , skin wires back and use side terminals .

Replace with good quality recepticals , I like to use 20 amp rated devices ..

There should not be an in and out of a outlet. It does sound like a loose neutral. The wires coming in and going out should be wire nutted together. with a tail going to the outlet. one of these connections is loose. By the code you can not use the outlet for the path for power or neutral. It must be wire nutted together with a tail for the device.

That is NOT national code for receptacles.

But I agree that it SHOULD be tailed.


As stated, you have an open nuetral. Loose connection somewhere. Whether it's on the outlet or a loose wirenut or something.

Thanks for the help. All Ive worked on for the last five years is 460V delta motor controllers, both legs of 120 are 60 volts I get confused when I get home and have a neutral
JD

More or less correct... The device must be UL listed as rated for feed through methods...

Pigtails on the neutral are required only for multiwire branch circuits... 300.13 I believe.

But it sure is a good idea to pigtail. I've pulled too many receps out of boxes that used the 2 side screws in lieu of a pigtail... In a lot of cases the conductors had heated up enough to degrade/melt the insulation on the conductors...

What it boils down to is that you are relying on that little tab that connects the top and bottom screws to carry current downstream to other devices.

I never rely on the device. I always pigtail. It's also a must for commercial applications where you may have to change out a recep without interrupting power to the entire circuit.

Pigtails are more of a pain for the initial install, but make life easier lover the long run.

Mike