Circuit Tracers

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laketime

laketime

Senior Member
I looked through some old threads and did not seem to find the answer I was looking for so here it goes. I am looking for a good quality circuit tracer. I have a restaurant that moved to a new location and wants me to identify every circuit going where ever in a 30 year old building. The circuits will be energized while we do this. Any suggestions?
 
K8MHZ

K8MHZ

Senior Member
Location
Michigan. It's a beautiful peninsula, I've looked
Occupation
Electrician
laketime said:
I looked through some old threads and did not seem to find the answer I was looking for so here it goes. I am looking for a good quality circuit tracer. I have a restaurant that moved to a new location and wants me to identify every circuit going where ever in a 30 year old building. The circuits will be energized while we do this. Any suggestions?
Click to expand...

I would use a little device I have to locate which circuits are on which breakers. I don't think it will work on fuses.

What I do, and this may or may not work for you, is to get some 3 x 5 index cards, one for each breaker. Then I choose an outlet and connect the transmitter. I use the receiver to chirp out the breaker. Since the transmitter gets it's power from the outlet, if I have found the correct breaker and turn it off, the transmitter will shut down and I have positive ID for that circuit. While the breaker is off I use a tester to try to locate as many other outlets that are down. I list all the outlets as I find them on the cards until every outlet has it's breaker ID's.

Since flicking the breakers off may not do well to entertain the customers I would try to schedule the mapping while the restaurant was closed.
 
laketime

laketime

Senior Member
I have done this before and have a system set up for doing it, I was looking for for circuit tracers that people recommend.
 
C

Cow

Senior Member
Location
Eastern Oregon
Occupation
Electrician
I'm sure you seen it in your searches but an Amprobe AT-2005 works awesome for live circuit breaker finding. Mine gets used for this probably 95% of the time, I've only used it 2-3 times for actually tracing a circuit in walls, etc.

It has a 2 prong cord end for plugging into 120v receps or alligator clips for clamping onto disconnect lugs, etc. Super easy to use also, plug the transmitter in or clamp the clips onto the lugs, run the receiver down the breakers until the signal is in the middle of the range. Once narrowed down, one breaker will give you a strong signal but you won't pick anything up from the other adjacent breakers. It makes it very clear which one is the correct breaker, there's no guesswork. You can even tell when you're in the wrong panel as the signal is garbled and doesn't sound like it should.

The easiest would be two guys with radios, one guy plugging the transmitter in and labeling circuits while the other guy scans the panel to locate the breaker with the receiver.
 
cadpoint

cadpoint

Senior Member
Location
Durham, NC
IMO, Well I guess You didn't find my thread :D

148336_sperry-breaker-finde.jpg

I really like this instrument for testing and for a few extra dollars you can get the lamp tester as shown at the bottom of the web page. As you stated all your requirements can be met using this one device.

148337_accessory-adapter-kit.jpg


A Tool Supplier

What the picture doesn't show is the back of the instrument that would present the breaker sensing part. Once the screamer is left in the receptacle, the sensor will chirp as you walk by a connected receptacle, or even with the wires in the box, as well as ID the desired breaker in panel. Thin profile breakers are a littler trickier...

While the high dollar tracer can detect through walls and show locations of physical breaks, this one tool can do quite a bit verses the 1 to 10 ratio on the dollar verses the price of the some of the other available equipment!
 
glene77is

glene77is

Senior Member
Location
Memphis, TN
laketime said:
I have done this before and have a system set up for doing it, I was looking for for circuit tracers that people recommend.
Click to expand...

Lake,
I saw one I want, in ECM, Racketeers, maybe $40.
It is a Sonalert mounted on a 3 prong plug.
(also includes a 3 light circuit testor).
(1) Plug it into 120V receptical,
(2) turn up the whistle volume to screeching loud,
(3) flip circuit breakers off (for a second only),
(4) listen for the whistle to stop.

Extech makes a whistle unit, which may work.
Amprobe makes several Open/Closed Circuit tracers at $400 up. Very Nice units.

Frequently I use a datacomm toner and banana.
I like the warble, but the circuit must be dead.
This is great for finding where a dead circuit terminates.
I have several houses to trouble shoot (behind another electrician)
where the Panel branch circuits do not get all the way to some parts of the house.
So, I have to trace them from the far (dead) end back towards the panel.

Since I always work alone,
always make a map and drawing (Acad),
this whistle device could be very handy, and cheap enough.

:)
 
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J

jmellc

Senior Member
Location
Durham, NC
Occupation
Facility Maintenance Tech. Licensed Electrician
I'm needing a tracer as well. Haven't seen that Amprobe model or the tool supplier one. Supply houses here now have the new Ideal tracer kits. They look like they would work well, having the visual and audio features. Have any of you here used that? Only feedback I hear so far is from supply house guys who sell them. I've had a couple of the 30 and 40 dollar types; not much luck with them. A former boss had the Greenlee kit with the cords, clips, toner and receiver. He had some luck with it but it wasn't accurate enough for critical applications.

The Ideal kit is very high, over 1,000 last time I checked. Don't want to spend like that if something else works well too.
 
T

ty

Senior Member
Location
3rd Rock from the Sun
Just saw my Ideal rep, yesterday.
He had their new circuit tracer kit with him. It is very nice. He broke it out and we did some tests.
It did everything that he said it would.

But it is $1000 + for the whole package.
It even has a 'smart' screen so no matter which direction you hold the tester, you can always read it. No turning your head sideways or upside down.
 
S

saratoga1

Member
Location
Ky
will these find open hot or neutral wires in the walls?? I had an open neutral a few weeks ago in a house and was time consuming to find it
 
J

jayrad1122

Member
Location
Northeast, PA
ty said:
Just saw my Ideal rep, yesterday.
He had their new circuit tracer kit with him. It is very nice. He broke it out and we did some tests.
It did everything that he said it would.

But it is $1000 + for the whole package.
It even has a 'smart' screen so no matter which direction you hold the tester, you can always read it. No turning your head sideways or upside down.
Click to expand...

We use these at work and i give them a ten. I'm on a job now surveying data racks and locating unused circuits and it saves a lot of time. It will locate wires or cables in the wall, identify breakers (even twin breakers), and locates opens and shorts. Downside is the price tag.

Even comes with a video showing how to use it.

Jared
 
quogueelectric

quogueelectric

Senior Member
Location
new york
laketime said:
I looked through some old threads and did not seem to find the answer I was looking for so here it goes. I am looking for a good quality circuit tracer. I have a restaurant that moved to a new location and wants me to identify every circuit going where ever in a 30 year old building. The circuits will be energized while we do this. Any suggestions?
Click to expand...
amprobe 2005 is the best of the best. You need to spend some time reading the instruction manual and have a good basic electrical theory knowledge to use its full power.
 
G

gar

Senior Member
Location
Ann Arbor, Michigan
Occupation
EE
100115-2157 EST

Put an oscillating 12 A load on a circuit (1500 W heater). Measure the voltage drop across breakers. The one oscillating in synchronization with the load oscillation is the breaker for that circuit. Probably can use this changing load to determine the other outlets on the same circuit.

.
 
P

petey_c

Member
I use the Amprobe and am very satisfied with it. I managed to pick one up used on Ebay for $650.00. It was almost brand new. The engineer type who sold it to me said he bought it and wound up not using it. I wondered later if some company was missing theirs... It seemed kind of odd, this isn't something you'd normally buy for around the house t'shooting.
glene77is When I can turn the circuit off and the customer doesn't object, I use a method similar to yours; I plug in my radio, turn it up loud (or use an extension cord to bring it closer to the panel) and start flipping breakers.
 
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