Abstract
A loose neutral is one of the most dangerous faults a single-phase service can develop, and one of the least likely to announce itself. The connection does not fail outright. It degrades, intermittently breaking and remaking the return path while the customer reports little more than flickering lights and the occasional dead outlet. PMI has covered the fault itself across a decade of white papers; what has changed is the finding of it. Merlin™, the AI analyst built into PQ Canvass, now examines a recording automatically, explains in detail what is wrong and how severe it is, answers questions about the findings through Merlin™ Chat, and writes the finished report. This paper uses the loose neutral as the test case: a brief review of the mechanism and its signature, then a demonstration of Merlin™ carrying the investigation from raw recording to finished document.
