Found a dead short in a junction box using my phone's flashlight instead of a meter

So I was troubleshooting a tripped breaker at a house in Arlington last Tuesday. Nothing obvious at the panel, so I started opening up boxes. I'm looking at this one junction box under a porch light and I see a wire nut barely hanging on. Instead of grabbing my multimeter I just pulled out my phone flashlight and shined it at an angle. That's when I saw the bare copper just barely touching the metal box. Fixed it in 30 seconds after chasing the problem for an hour. Has anyone else found weird shortcuts that actually worked better than pulling out the right tool first?

2 comments

2 Comments

quinn_king161mo ago

Start with the obvious cheap fix and call it a day. Dead shorts are usually something dumb like that, a meter just confirms what you already see. Sounds like you saved yourself ten minutes of beeping at a box.

schmidt.eva1mo ago

Bet you ten bucks the previous guy already tried that and just didn't tighten the screw enough. That's how half these "mystery" shorts happen - someone was close but gave up one turn of the screwdriver too early.