Circuit Tracers

hillbilly1 said:
Mine has an adjustable gain, but this is similar.
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That is my primary tracer when power is available. Never realized it senses current, much less that other brands were using a different method.

Also have to ask people to shut down computers to trace a circuit.
 
hillbilly1 said:
That’s one of the drawbacks of tracers that do live and dead tracing. They are not as accurate as a live only tracer. Zircon makes a cheap tracer that works pretty decent. The trick to those, is do not test the receiver on the transmitter before you start tracing. It looks for the strongest signal, and you will never find it if you do that. It takes two passes to get the correct breaker, but it usually will never be off by more than one breaker.
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I saw the Zircon on Grainger's website. It specs that it works in walls, floors and nonmetallic conduit. Seriously won't work in metal conduit?? That would make it virtually useless in our plant.
 
jmellc said:
I saw the Zircon on Grainger's website. It specs that it works in walls, floors and nonmetallic conduit. Seriously won't work in metal conduit?? That would make it virtually useless in our plant.
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That’s why it’s so much cheaper. It’s good in finding breakers, but not strong enough to trace conduits. Not too good at tracing through walls and floors either. It’s more an entry level tracer. My previous employer would buy them for the new guys, and use them on a probationary period before they would let them get the better tracer. Too many would “get theirs stolen” right before they quit or got fired.
 
jmellc said:
I saw the Zircon on Grainger's website. It specs that it works in walls, floors and nonmetallic conduit. Seriously won't work in metal conduit?? That would make it virtually useless in our plant.
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It’s not a wire tracer. It’s strictly a breaker tracer. For that, it’s excellent, but that’s all it does.

The Ideal is a wire/circuit/breaker tracer, with many different ways to do it. It even has an inductive clamp for tracing.
 
I remember the good ole days when we had a device that alternately would turn a light on and off at one second intervals. this was placed between a lamp in a pigtail lamp holder and the bulb would flash on and off. Then we could find the suspect breaker by using an amprobe at the panel. It was 100 percent accurate , no false readings, you were able to track the identity of the circuit breaker down in an unmarked panel without interupting any other circuits. They quit making them years ago and I didn't find out till after the supplies of them dried out. I would have gladly bought 500 of them or so had I known they were in the process of going extinct.
 
macmikeman said:
I remember the good ole days when we had a device that alternately would turn a light on and off at one second intervals. this was placed between a lamp in a pigtail lamp holder and the bulb would flash on and off. Then we could find the suspect breaker by using an amprobe at the panel. It was 100 percent accurate , no false readings, you were able to track the identity of the circuit breaker down in an unmarked panel without interupting any other circuits. They quit making them years ago and I didn't find out till after the supplies of them dried out. I would have gladly bought 500 of them or so had I known they were in the process of going extinct.
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That's brilliant!

There's gotta be a way to make your own right?

Rob G - Seattle
 
macmikeman said:
They quit making them years ago and I didn't find out till after the supplies of them dried out. I would have gladly bought 500 of them or so had I known they were in the process of going extinct.
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LarryFine said:
www.ebay.com

1 Each Superior Eagle Electric 60w 120v Twinkle Blinker Flasher Button USA | eBay

<p>Superior Eagle Electric 60w 120v Twinkle Flasher Button. </p><br /><p>You get ONE blinker / flasher with every purchase.</p><br /><p>These only work with incandescent light bulbs. </p><br /><p>Item will be tested prior to shipping </p><br /><p>Made in the USA</p><br /><p>Sorry no volume...
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I think I used them once. You just put it in the socket and screw the bulb to it. Had a red light hooked on to a boiler control and the light was outside the building. When the boiler went on lockout the red light would flash.
 
Don’t know if you can still get them, but SSAC made electronic flasher modules for checkout stands. They would flash at the right rate IF you can still find an incandescent light bulb! LOL!
 
macmikeman said:
I remember the good ole days when we had a device that alternately would turn a light on and off at one second intervals. this was placed between a lamp in a pigtail lamp holder and the bulb would flash on and off. Then we could find the suspect breaker by using an amprobe at the panel. It was 100 percent accurate , no false readings, you were able to track the identity of the circuit breaker down in an unmarked panel without interupting any other circuits. They quit making them years ago and I didn't find out till after the supplies of them dried out. I would have gladly bought 500 of them or so had I known they were in the process of going extinct.
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Never saw those. Wish I had.
 
My old boss had a locked desk drawer full of the flasher buttons when I was still just a helper. He used to dole them out to me one at a time with a cussing session cause I kept loosing them.
 
mtnelect said:
In my apprenticeship, my journeyman shorted out a plug that he carried ... Who needs those electronic gadget's he would say !

Also, he liked using a hammer when he was installing new outlets ... He would say, that's why we have plasters !
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I knew an hvac contractor that would shove a screwdriver into the disconnect, then charge the customer for a new one.
 
I just bought the tasco cmd42ds circuit mapper. I used it on a pretty large house and can say it worked well. I got a few false readings which was disappointing but overall helped make the panel schedule a lot quicker once set up. One downside is it takes a good minute to set up and you've got to clamp each wire coming off each circuit breaker with a clamp.
 
The boss bought us the Zircon. We’ve used it twice. Not 100% but good. I bought a mogul socket adaptor so we could trace circuit on a high bay light. We like it so far.
 
2Broke2Sleep said:
I just bought the tasco cmd42ds circuit mapper. I used it on a pretty large house and can say it worked well. I got a few false readings which was disappointing but overall helped make the panel schedule a lot quicker once set up. One downside is it takes a good minute to set up and you've got to clamp each wire coming off each circuit breaker with a clamp.
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That wouldn’t work for me. I would have to wear my arc flash PPE to open the panel. Cumbersome.
 
Eddie702 said:
I think I used them once. You just put it in the socket and screw the bulb to it. Had a red light hooked on to a boiler control and the light was outside the building. When the boiler went on lockout the red light would flash.
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Have used them or something similar to make our Christmas lights flash.
 
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