I bought this tool about 2 years ago. They’re not cheap, I don’t remember the exact price I paid, but it was in the $1k range.
At the time I spent a lot of time reading about it and watching videos about it. I had major debates with myself about whether I could justify the price, what it would allow me to do, how much would I actually use it, ...on and on.
If you do a search on this forum you’ll see that I posted inquiries about the tester, requesting feedback from other owners.
I didn’t get a lot of feedback. I just remember a few comments about uses.
That’s why I wanted to post this testimonial. In the future, if someone does a search looking for info about this tester it might help them in the decision making process.
To let you know what I do and how I use it, I’m a one man shop. I do lots of service calls and troubleshooting in both residential and commercial setting. I work with both NMB and EMT situations. Some of my commercial settings are at schools, office buildings (including the local county offices and courthouse), several hotels and restaurants. If I accidentally turn off the wrong circuit I can royally screw up someone’s day! I also do a lot of remodels, additions, and rewires of various age structures.
First off it’s one of those tools that takes awhile to gradually incorporate into your everyday routine and take advantage of everything it is capable of doing. I’m still learning. There’s a couple of things it does that I haven’t taken advantage of.
Out of the box what I initially used it for was a circuit breaker locator. You plug the transmitter into a receptacle and go to the panel to find the right breaker. I’ve had other CB locators before (Klein), And used them regularly. There’s certain situations that it didn’t work well (hit-or-miss) like EMT. The SureTrace is amazing. I can go into a commercial setting like the courthouse, I can plug it into a receptacle and go back to various mech rooms and be able to tell you which panel and which CB in that panel, and this is all EMT. With time and experience using the tester, I can confidently locate the proper CB nearly all the time and have confidence that I’m turning off the right breaker.
A little more advanced usage of the tester is the following service call;
Recently, the maintenance guy for the county office building called me to help him locate a CB that controls an air handler unit that they were having an HVAC company change out. It was located above a drop ceiling and the disconnect was up there also. It was a 3-pole disconnect. The building is typical 3-phase 208/120. The disconnect didn’t have power. My task was to figure out why.
I used the alligator clips that are part of the SureTrace kit and clipped onto the line side black terminal and ground and went back to where the panels are looking for a 3-pole CB. In the panels with 3P breakers I wasn’t getting any positive readings. The building ha4 locations for panels. I was confused about not getting a reading so I moved the alligator clip to the red terminal and then the blue terminal with nothing.
On a fluke I started looking in other panels that were reasonably close to this air handler. Instantly I got a response from a 2P 30A breaker which didn’t really make sense (breaker was in the off position). I took the cover off and there was a black and red terminated on the breaker and the blue was folded back into the panel. For whatever reason the existing air handler was a single phase. I hadn’t looked at the nameplate because it wasn’t easily visible in the drop ceiling. The maintenance guy had no clue.
Long story short- it probably took me 45 minutes to accomplish this task. I probably could have done this service call without the SureTrace, but I know it would’ve taken longer.
Other uses involve hooking up to a circuit and tracing the route through the circuit, behind wall coverings and at other outlets on the same circuit. I’ve found a specific NMB cable within a bundle of cables, even if the circuit is turned off.
Although I have an underground locator for tracing buried lines, the SureTrace has the same ability, it’s just not specifically designed for that task, but works in a pinch.
My conclusion of owning this tester is that, in my normal working day, I use it almost every day. I’d have a hard time imagining doing some of my troubleshooting without it. It makes me more efficient, and instills a lot of confidence in my customers about my troubleshooting service. If something happened to the one I own (stolen, etc) I’d go out and instantly buy a replacement.
Feel free to ask questions or comment.
At the time I spent a lot of time reading about it and watching videos about it. I had major debates with myself about whether I could justify the price, what it would allow me to do, how much would I actually use it, ...on and on.
If you do a search on this forum you’ll see that I posted inquiries about the tester, requesting feedback from other owners.
I didn’t get a lot of feedback. I just remember a few comments about uses.
That’s why I wanted to post this testimonial. In the future, if someone does a search looking for info about this tester it might help them in the decision making process.
To let you know what I do and how I use it, I’m a one man shop. I do lots of service calls and troubleshooting in both residential and commercial setting. I work with both NMB and EMT situations. Some of my commercial settings are at schools, office buildings (including the local county offices and courthouse), several hotels and restaurants. If I accidentally turn off the wrong circuit I can royally screw up someone’s day! I also do a lot of remodels, additions, and rewires of various age structures.
First off it’s one of those tools that takes awhile to gradually incorporate into your everyday routine and take advantage of everything it is capable of doing. I’m still learning. There’s a couple of things it does that I haven’t taken advantage of.
Out of the box what I initially used it for was a circuit breaker locator. You plug the transmitter into a receptacle and go to the panel to find the right breaker. I’ve had other CB locators before (Klein), And used them regularly. There’s certain situations that it didn’t work well (hit-or-miss) like EMT. The SureTrace is amazing. I can go into a commercial setting like the courthouse, I can plug it into a receptacle and go back to various mech rooms and be able to tell you which panel and which CB in that panel, and this is all EMT. With time and experience using the tester, I can confidently locate the proper CB nearly all the time and have confidence that I’m turning off the right breaker.
A little more advanced usage of the tester is the following service call;
Recently, the maintenance guy for the county office building called me to help him locate a CB that controls an air handler unit that they were having an HVAC company change out. It was located above a drop ceiling and the disconnect was up there also. It was a 3-pole disconnect. The building is typical 3-phase 208/120. The disconnect didn’t have power. My task was to figure out why.
I used the alligator clips that are part of the SureTrace kit and clipped onto the line side black terminal and ground and went back to where the panels are looking for a 3-pole CB. In the panels with 3P breakers I wasn’t getting any positive readings. The building ha4 locations for panels. I was confused about not getting a reading so I moved the alligator clip to the red terminal and then the blue terminal with nothing.
On a fluke I started looking in other panels that were reasonably close to this air handler. Instantly I got a response from a 2P 30A breaker which didn’t really make sense (breaker was in the off position). I took the cover off and there was a black and red terminated on the breaker and the blue was folded back into the panel. For whatever reason the existing air handler was a single phase. I hadn’t looked at the nameplate because it wasn’t easily visible in the drop ceiling. The maintenance guy had no clue.
Long story short- it probably took me 45 minutes to accomplish this task. I probably could have done this service call without the SureTrace, but I know it would’ve taken longer.
Other uses involve hooking up to a circuit and tracing the route through the circuit, behind wall coverings and at other outlets on the same circuit. I’ve found a specific NMB cable within a bundle of cables, even if the circuit is turned off.
Although I have an underground locator for tracing buried lines, the SureTrace has the same ability, it’s just not specifically designed for that task, but works in a pinch.
My conclusion of owning this tester is that, in my normal working day, I use it almost every day. I’d have a hard time imagining doing some of my troubleshooting without it. It makes me more efficient, and instills a lot of confidence in my customers about my troubleshooting service. If something happened to the one I own (stolen, etc) I’d go out and instantly buy a replacement.
Feel free to ask questions or comment.
