Circuit Detective

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PSI

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I was recently tasked at work to matchup breakers to the outlets in our building. I have been using a device called the circuit detective. Its been very useful but while scanning the fuse box, it isn't picking everything up. Is there a product out there that if inserted into an outlet, would flip the breaker? Or should I upgrade to a 220v circuit detective?
 
I don't have an answer for you. But whatever you do, no not intentionally cause a breaker to trip. (n) If it fails to trip, you will have a serious safety risk on your hands. If it does trip, you will have taken away some of its useful life.
 
I have a circuit tracer from Klein that works well,
A radio plugged in and turned on, turn off CBs and then when the radio goes off you have it
Old school, but works great, is wire a male plug to a light socket with pigtails. Put a flasher button in the socket, with about a 150 watt tuff skin lamp
Plug in take your ampprobe and check current, looking for the one that is pulsing. Of course with this setup you have to pull the panel covers.
 
While I have not tried it, I've heard this is supposed to be good one. Kind of pricey though.
www.tasco-usa.com

Circuit Mapper System

TASCO offers a circuit mapper system that maps all branch circuits quickly & easily. This branch circuit identifier enables you to work accurately & efficiently.
www.tasco-usa.com www.tasco-usa.com
Anybody used one?
 
PSI said:
Is there a product out there that if inserted into an outlet, would flip the breaker?
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Flip, as in trip it? No. Nothing would do that SAFELY (unless the breaker had a remote control option added to it, and hardly anyone does that).

I use the radio method, so far 100% reliable.
 
Zircon makes an affordable tracer that is pretty accurate if used correctly. It can plug in, or you can use the alligator clip adapter for wires. Most people don’t use it correctly, it looks for the strongest signal, so you have to scan the panel twice because it will hit on several breakers, but on the second pass will hit the correct one 99% of the time. Where people mess up, is they “test” it at the transmitter, so it never finds a stronger signal.
 
My experience with circuit tracers is you usually need to remover panel cover and hold tracer up to wires on breaker terminal to have better accuracy. Even then you can still be wrong if a little careless or impatient. That signal bleeds over to other circuits and you must have a tracer with a gain control that you can trim down until you only are getting signal on one circuit.

GFCI breakers is easy, use a low impedance meter and test to ground or a plug in GFCI tester and press test button.
 
I have an Amprobe CT23-100 circuit tracer that's over 30 years old, I use it all the time in commercial bldg's and I just used it yesterday. There was only one location in all of that time that I recall it just didn't work at all and the building had all old steel bx home runs, but I have no idea what difference that could possibly make to the tracer.
Here's a company that claims to be selling one for $227.00, which if true and since I know I paid over $500 for mine, is an amazing bargain.
www.radwell.com

Manufactured by - AMPROBE

CT23-100 Sensors & Switches from AMPROBE 2-Year Warranty - DISCONTINUED BY MANUFACTURER,CURRENT TRACER, 6.25KHZ, 0-120DEG-F 50-140VAC/DC
www.radwell.com www.radwell.com
 
RAKocher said:
I have an Amprobe CT23-100 circuit tracer that's over 30 years old, I use it all the time in commercial bldg's and I just used it yesterday. There was only one location in all of that time that I recall it just didn't work at all and the building had all old steel bx home runs, but I have no idea what difference that could possibly make to the tracer.
Here's a company that claims to be selling one for $227.00, which if true and since I know I paid over $500 for mine, is an amazing bargain.
www.radwell.com

Manufactured by - AMPROBE

CT23-100 Sensors & Switches from AMPROBE 2-Year Warranty - DISCONTINUED BY MANUFACTURER,CURRENT TRACER, 6.25KHZ, 0-120DEG-F 50-140VAC/DC
www.radwell.com www.radwell.com
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Probably a refurbished unit is why the low price. Radwell has refurbished items and new items. As far as refurbished goes, may or may not currently have an item in stock, so take that into consideration.
 
kwired said:
Probably a refurbished unit is why the low price. Radwell has refurbished items and new items. As far as refurbished goes, may or may not currently have an item in stock, so take that into consideration.
Click to expand...
I never heard of Radwell, but knowing what I know about that tracer and for that price if I was in the market I'd definitely inquire about it. They do take Paypal, which I prefer for mail ordering.
 
RAKocher said:
I never heard of Radwell, but knowing what I know about that tracer and for that price if I was in the market I'd definitely inquire about it. They do take Paypal, which I prefer for mail ordering.
Click to expand...
I haven't bought a lot from them, but have had many web searches with them in the results. They have a pretty wide variety of items. New item prices usually aren't that great, refurbished items are reasonable prices - but you must consider that you aren't getting a new item.
 
tom baker said:
I have sold a lot of equipment to Radwell, they are fair to deal with and I would trust whatever they sell
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I will second Tom's opinion of Radwell. A year or so ago, we ordered some equipment from them for a medium sized project, mostly Profibus cabling, connectors and a few gateway modules for various fieldbus interfaces. One thing we ordered was a NOS (new old stock) Profibus to Interbus gateway card, still sealed in it's original box for $600. Only after opening it did we realize that we ordered the wrong part. We let them know and they refunded much, but not all, of the $600 since they could no longer honestly re-sell it as "sealed" and unopened. I thought that was more than fair.
 
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