Current in the neutral wire?

Question

recently i change a starter on a flourescent lamp. although i have already turn off the switch, i still gt shock by the neutral wire. why is this so?

i have already turn off hte switch, can there still be current in hte hot wire?

Answer 1

You are about to fry, friend. Your neutral line is hot and that means somebody probably switched it in the wiring by accident. Your light doesn't care, probably most of what you own doesn't care. But, you, on the other hand could go to the promised land if you don't fix it. Go back on the wire to the last junction. In the US, the convention is that white is the color of the neutral wire, black for the line(hot) wire. Black, color of death. Not hard to remember. So trace the neutral back and somewhere a color-blind person mixed it up. Be careful, eh? Get some sort of voltage tracer to use. Fingers work, but the downside is pretty big.

Answer 2

Two possibilities:

First, the fixture could be wired on the hot side with the switch on the neutral side.

Second, there is a short circuit where the hot is directly touching the neutral just enough to cause a shock, but not enough to trip the circuit breaker or cause a fire.

Answer 3

In addition to the other answers there could be a back feed through any of the devices in that circut. Plus you must remember that the Neutral wires and the grounds all come together in the same bar in the panal. UNLESS it is a sub panal then they are separated.

Answer 4

The starter is actually a capacitor , which is an energy storing device. So when the starter was online it had got charged and hence stored electrical energy in the form electrostatic charge.

So, though the lamp was off line ,u got the electric shock due to the energy discharging from the starter through you and the neutral line.