Originally Posted by
onehundred80
We have a real live (excuse the pun) electrician here, SparkieSRT6 and we should ask him if the word short is used to explain many general problems among his fellow electricians or more explicit terms are used.
I'm not an electrician, but I'll chime in with 40 years experience in large computer systems repair.
To me, a 'short' means power / signal to ground and something is gonna smoke if it's power and the fuse/circuit breaker does not pop.
( It does not necessarily have to be ground, could be with another wire in a bundle )
An 'open' means that the power / signal is not getting from point A to point B like it should.
The term 'intermittent' can apply to either.