Electrical Phantoms

enblethen wrote:
Un-plug the cable. Test cable with Ohm meter. Should be no resistance between conductors.
You should have resistance looking back at the service between the neutral and ground.

You will not have resistance between the ground wire and the neutral wire when looking from the outlet, back to the main breaker box.
Neutral and ground are at the same potential.

CHousehold electric circuit

Neutral is the return to ground for the circuit.

My understanding of the "ground" wire is to protect the end user in case the equipment they are using becomes energized. The current will flow back to ground through the ground wire instead of through YOU.
If that ground is broken somewhere. YOU become the source to ground.


OP
Now that you have determined that your supply cable conductors are not shorted. I would make sure they are all intact. By that I mean to check continuity on each conductor from end to end. That would ensure they are all good from end to end.

*now you could have a partially open neutral, and that test would not indicate that. It would be pretty difficult to find that. The resistance might be slightly higher in a partially open wire, and you're most likely not going to see that.

**we see partial opens all the time in the telecom industry in the outside cables. They're hard to find. Causes that "crackling/frying" sound on the phone.

If you have an open neutral in your supply cable, you could be using your ground wire as a return path. You don't want that.