On Tuesday, November 17, 2015 at 3:11:19 PM UTC-5, Micky wrote:
On Tue, 17 Nov 2015 19:44:02 +0000, Bruce
wrote:

replying to Don Klipstein, Bruce wrote:
don wrote:

Since it takes at least about 50 volts AC to light a neon lamp, and even
more for the NE-2H, A1C and similar ones in testers but the meter reads
only 30 volts, what you have is a situation with low, highly limited
current.
I suspect you have a switch at the end of a run of wire, and capacitance
between the two wires is allowing a small amount of AC current to flow.
If the switch in question is at the end of a run of wire, this is
perfectly normal.
- Don Klipstein )



I have the exact same situation in the house addition I'm building, two
new 3-way circuits wired as in the photo at the end of a wire run. With
the switches in the off position, one circuit read 29 volts across the
load wires, and the other read 31 volts. So I hooked up a temporary
single light bulb thinking I'd see a very faint glow in the filament.
Nothing doing. No glow, and then with the light off, when I read across
the terminals of the bulb socket, I read zero volts.


You probably need a low impedence meter to measure the voltage,
instead of high impedance that puts no load on the circuit. Usually
that means analog, with a needle, rather than digital.

That would account for why he had 30 volt with no bulb and 0
volts with it. A high impedance meter can read what amounts
to stray voltage. With even a small load, it disappears.

As to whether he has some real problem, who knows, because all
we know are the two voltage readings. Does the light work?