It works better if you plug it in, but plug it in c a r e f u l l y.
LOL, I had a friend at one point who's kid plugged a fryer into a GFCI outlet and forgot it on. The actual outlet nearly caught fire but the GFCI tripped at some point so they got lucky. Outlet was destroyed and the wall was scorched a bit. Replaced the outlet for her and she was freaking out when I tested it without putting it back in the wall. I told her, "Here watch this." and stuck my bare finger onto the hot leg. She was freaking out by this point in time but nothing happened. I had stuck my other arm behind my back and made sure I was not grounded. I had on a pair of shoes and was standing on a vinyl floor with a wood subfloor. I figured the risk was minimal as long as I didn't short myself out.
What I know about electricity, I flip a switch my lights come on, I plug something in it works (usually), that's about it. Back in the day when I took my ASVAB, the electronics segment, I bombed. When asked about it, I told the recruiter the same that I stated at the beginning of this post. I watched and helped my father-in-law wire a few buildings that he had built and one that we had built, it doesn't seem to difficult, just something I don't want to learn.
I did that one time but I was leaning on the refrigerator and standing in a bucket of water.
Please don't include the ground in that switch.
Of course not.
HOW?
Not sure what would cause that. I would take a voltage reading between line and ground and between neutral and ground to see if anything changes. Possibly a bad connection somewhere. Is the power strip fed by a GFCI?
Bad neutral either in the power cord, the power strip or the outlet. Test it between the hot and ground at each one.
Yeah, it was the cord.
