The day I realized I'd been using my multimeter wrong for 8 years

I was helping a buddy wire up a new ceiling fan in his garage last Saturday, and he asked me to check if the old box was grounded. I pulled out my Fluke, set it to AC voltage, and touched the leads to neutral and ground. It read 0.2 volts, so I said it was fine. He gave me this funny look and said 'you know that's a continuity test, right?' I told him no, it's clearly measuring voltage. He just sighed, switched my meter to the continuity setting with the little speaker icon, and touched the leads together. The beep was so loud it startled me. Turns out I'd been reading voltage on open circuits for years and calling things 'good' when they were actually dead. I felt like a total hack. Has anyone else had that moment where you realized you skipped a basic step for way too long?

2 comments

2 Comments

jamesmason9d ago

Ha! That's rough buddy. I once wired a whole lamp backward for three years.

ivan_hayes299d ago

Wired a lamp backwards for THREE years? That's almost impressive in a weird way. At LEAST it still worked, just backwards. Sounds like a total win in my book honestly.