Watt to you Sparkys think of this please?

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TonyL

TonyL

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Circuit Breaker Tracer - Lee Valley Tools

Toy or decent piece of equipment?

I am not looking to plug in a vacuum cleaner and listen for it; I was hoping this is a decent tool.
Thanks!

PS. I should also add that my house has 3 floors and pretty wide, like 100 feet across. Don't know if that will affect the signal.
 
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It might work. Then again, it might not. It might pick up interference if the circuit you're tracing is in a multi-cable.
I use something called a Pasar.
CT-326B Current Tracer | Amprobe

The one I have is about $1000 these days, but it's extremely accurate.
It has to be for the type of work I do.
 
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U r welcome. I am going to let our esteemed electrical-savvy members way in. They will point me in the right direction.
 
I have a couple of those. One is from HF and it worked well in my house. I have a full basement and two floors and I have used them in the basement all the way across the hose(approx 60ft) and they worked fine.

You just have to make sure that you take your time when you run the receiver over the circuit breakers so that you get the right one.
 
Tony I will voice my opinion and take it for what it is worth.:smile: Do not waste your money. They are not accurate. You will get cross linking and if the electrician did not unwrap a multi cable wire that shares the same neutral you will get cross linking.

If you really want to lay out your house circuit wise. Borrow the kids, grand kids or the wife. You can also do it yourself. Alot of walking in a mansion like your though.:biggrin:In a house there are not that many circuits unless someone was annal and split the heck out of the rooms. What you do is shut off one breaker at a time. Go around and find that circuit with a good circuit tester. Those cube testers are very good for this. It has lights to show visual and some even have sound. Usually the whole room outlets are on the same circuit so you will do this quickly. After you found outlets and or lights, remove the cover and write on the back in marker the circuit number on each device. In commercial work they use those PTouch machines because most places this is now code. But they put them on the outside of the covers. I do not think you want that in your house. Also now mark the panel in plain good direction language. If you have to make a separate card other than the one supplied do not be afraid to do so. Make sure it is placed in the panel door some how.

This is what I have in my house and what I do if doing work in someone's house. I mark the heck out of what device I am working on both at the device and back at the panel. Does not take long and you do it once. Then those devices are not needed any more. If you have work done in the house make sure things are marked properly. This is just my opinion.

Now I have used very sophisticated circuit finders in computer rooms because you can not shut off breakers at will. They are not home owner equipment though. Good luck.

I am sure there will be someone will say what happens when you paint a room and take all the plates off??? Mark the outlet or the box. There is always a place where the plate covers that you can mark.
 
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Lee Valley has a good reputation and stands behind its products. The tools are mid-range price, and perhaps light duty for daily commercial use.

For occasional use, it should suffice well.

The alternative is two people with cellphones and a test plug. Just did that at the Tucson Condo getting the circuits mapped and updating outlets.
 
I have the Klein version and it works pretty good. You need to turn the sensitivity down on it, that way you can narrow it down to 1 breaker. If you have the sensitivity all the way up, it'll sound off on several of the breakers.

I turn the sensitivity all the way up, get it close & then drop the sensitivity until it only sounds on 1 breaker.
 
Tony, for that price, I would pass on that one. Go to an electrical supply house and see what they have and recommend. See what the pros use everyday.
I bought a cheapie unit many moons ago (Decades) for not too much money.....not reliable enough to get out of the truck.
 
Thanks JT. I will follow your advice..actually my electrician has done what you recommended with the room he had on the panels. Thx for saving me some dough...I thought it we be something to quickly afford me some assurance. Nothing like plugging something into an outlet and see if it operates. I think it's worth walking a few feet and a some stairs. Much appreciated!
 
I agree with JT. I have used (tried to use) similar testers in the past with only marginal success. I would put this one in the don't waste your money category.
 
Tony; It does not function like it says. The detection is too broad to be useful.

That said, it does work well. Just plug in the remote unit, go to the electrical panel and make sure you have a signal, then turn off one breaker after another until the signal stops. That is the breaker for that outlet. Use caution with duplex outlets. The two outlets *MAY* be on separate breakers, or there may be separate breakers in the same box. This isn't to code, but I have seen it. This is fairly common when one outlet is switched, and the other is not.

You really need an outlet tester with the three lights (and a GFCI test button), and a "non-contact voltage detector". You can get these two as a set.
 
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