question from student

[Craig Young]

My building is wired almost entirely with MC cable. They are often bundled, and their paths are almost impossible to trace. I wanted to splice a drop for an outlet one time, and I could not identify which jacket was my circuit.
A glow stick will not work through the jacket, not even for 277v, and a clamp on amp meter of course will not register since there is a grounded conductor in the jacket also. Once I broke an MC open, and of course then i could use a glow stick. I was positive i had followed it's path exactly, only to find it was the wrong circuit.

does anyone know a good way to locate MC in mid-span besides what i have tried?

 

[iwire]

Yes but it ain't cheap.

My amprobe brand tracer will trace armored cables, I believe it is $800 to $1000.

 

[Sparky Joe]

Do you have someone helping you? Have them pull the cable back and forth from where you know it's the right one, then look for the moving cable downstream/upstream from where they are.

 

[tshea]

Do you have someone helping you? Have them pull the cable back and forth from where you know it's the right one, then look for the moving cable downstream/upstream from where they are.

Works unless someone stapled the MC in place!

 

[Sparky Joe]

Sometimes when duty calls you gotta pull a few 'staples' or the alternative, buy an 800 dollar instrument that was mentioned above to find the once in a while cable.