"Charles" wrote in message
. ..

"CooSer" wrote in message
...
I am a little baffled. I have flood lights that used to work. They
stopped working so I replaced the bulbs with indoor/outdoor type flood
lights. This did not fix the problem. I checked the sockets with my
little $6 voltage detector and there is power. In fact, there is power in
the sockets whether the switch is on or off.

A voltage tester is most often a high-impedance device. What that means,
in simple terms, is that it does not load the circuit. You have a circuit
that fails under load. Somewhere, there is a bad connection.

Phantom? For heavens sake, let's get real here. There is no such thing as
a phantom voltage ... there is a voltage that shows up with no load and
drops to near zero with a load ... bad connection!