Hi all. I have a bathroom fan on a simple switch but wanted to upgrade it to a time. When I pulled the switch out of the wall I found one ground wire, and a singe wire with some of the sheathing removed to loop around the other terminal.
Can I cut the looped wire and connect it to the load / line on the timer? Then I connect the ground to the uncapped ground/neutral on the switch?
Edit: the advice worked.
I put the unlooped black wire with one of the black wires on the timer. I cut the black loop and tied the two wires to another black wire on the timer. I put another grounding wire on the metal box and attached it to ground. Likewise, I pigtailed the neutral bundle and connected to neutral.
It took a few tries to get the box to close correctly since the timer is so big, but it worked out! Thanks again all.
Edit: I missed the first image.
That looped wire looks really weird. I think wildbus8979 is correct. The looped wire should be cut, and both ends connected with a wire nut to the the "line/load" wire. I assume the other loose black wire is the other "line/load" wire, it is probably not a ground wire.