NVCT VS OUTLET TESTER VS MULTIMETER

These three all test for electricity, but they all do different things. Let's get after it. First one, non-contact voltage tester. This is a quick way to scan for possible presence of AC voltage. But all it's doing is sensing an electric field and not actually measuring the voltage. These can pose a lot of unknowns. It can give false readings whether the battery's dying, it's picking up something else in your box, or you're just positioned wrong on your wire. This is a great tool for a quick scan, but I wouldn't rely on it alone to verify if something's actually de-energized or not. Next up is an outlet tester. It's a great tool to tell you if your outlet's wired correctly, and it can tell you all of these different things with these indicating lights down here. So, if I go ahead and plug this in, I have one yellow light in the center glowing. And that's telling me there's an open ground. Or you can get a digital one like this one. There's a fault. The fault is open ground. That's why they are so useful. They're incredibly fast for identifying several common receptacle problems. These outlet testers also work for testing your GFCIs. And a multimeter lets me troubleshoot deeper into electrical problems. I'll show you. We're getting in about 119 volts. Now, if I move this to the ground, it should read the same. And we're reading right about 4 volts. So, the outlet tester told me I have an open ground, but the multimeter let me investigate further. Non-contact voltage tester for speed, outlet tester for simplicity, and multimeter for actual measurements and deeper troubleshooting. Anyways, I got to go fix an open ground. I'll catch you guys later. Peace.