electrical
If I have a multimeter, and I put one lead in the hot slot of an electrical outlet, will accidentally touching the other lead complete a circuit and electrocute me?
Likewise, if instead I put one lead in the neutral slot of an electrical outlet, will accidentally touching the other lead complete a circuit and electrocute me?
You could easily build one out of an extension cord and some screw terminals. If you can't figure out how to wire it up, you probably shouldn't be doing it.
But you likely won't find such a thing sold since the exposed terminals likely won't pass any safety certifications. You also have to be careful to make a good connection with your probes, eliminate any arcing that might damage the probes or start a fire, not short them, etc. Current clamps are great in this respect since you don't have to have any exposed wire.
Overall the killawatt devices are cheap, accurate enough for most uses, plentiful, and designed to be safe. If you need something higher quality, I'd stick with the $100 current clamp and an extension cord with the individual wires separated.
Depending on where you're measuring continuity and where the motion sending light is, the motion sending light on circuit could be causing the behavior you're seeing. For example, if the motion sensor is on circuit B (shown as a resistor in this diagram) that can cause your meter to see continuity between the hot on Circuit B and the neutral on circuit A since the neutrals are connected together:
Best Answer
If the multimeter is set to read voltage, it will have a very high-resistance, so if everything is working correctly touching the other lead will not shock you.
If it's set to read current, it will have almost 0-resistance, so touching the other lead would be equivalent to touching the bare wire. Thus, having the multimeter plugged into the hot-slot and touching the other lead will shock you (but, having it plugged into the neutral won't)