Quote:
Originally Posted by SMCrane1554
I checked the patio light fixtures on the front and curbside, and I could not find a ground screw. I know that I have power to those lights because I can ground the voltage checker on one of the screws which attach the fixture to the outer shell and contact the power lead with the voltage checker, and the voltage checker lights up. There is a ground in the small oval junction box on one of the supports for the front shell, which I pulled loose and re-attached. There are ground connections in two junction boxes under the TM, and I re-did both of them. I checked the curbside patio light again, and the voltage checker will not light when I touch the white and black leads attached to the switch. Any advice would be helpful.
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I understand exactly what you did and might be able to help in that case.
The 4 screws that attach each light to the shell also go through the metal skin and indeed are probably a very good ground point to check against if you scratch off the white paint from the screw heads. Also the oval junction box on the back side is the 120 Volt wiring junction. The metal housing and screws of that box are also a very good ground point, in fact I used the same junction box to determine that my back side porch light had a bad ground connection.
So if you are reading 12V to these good ground points, but NOT 12V between the two socket leads, then you most likely have a problem at the light socket's ground lead.
The ground wire lead on each light socket doesn't use any of those 4 mounting screws.
To find the light socket ground, remove all 4 of the mounting screws, then gently pry around the perimeter of the light socket. There may be calking that you have to scrape and remove. Behind the light assembly is a thin metal plate that must be gently pried off as well. Behind the metal plate, you should see the ground wire from the bulb socket that is attached to the skin with another small screw. That is probably where the bad ground connection to the light needs to be cleaned up.