Reverse circuit tracing tool

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brother

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"I have learned, in whatsoever STATE I am, therewi
I have used circuit tracers to help me find breakers when it was it unknown.
Does anyone know of any tool that you can use to put the tracer at the 'source'(breaker) and find out what it feeds that way? In other words in reverse. The power needed to stay on.

I found that this would make some things go faster, instead of having keep plugging in and unplugging my transmitter from receptacles to see which breaker is feeding it. Any help would be appreciated.
 
080503-2027 EST

brother:

kpepin referenced the Tasco unit and it looks like it will do what you want.

My question is what is the theory behind its operation? There is no discussion of the basic theory.

Any injected signal at the main panel should have about the same signal level going out thru all the closed breakers. So how can one differentiate the signal originating from the the particular clip on injector? Consider a simple sine wave injected into circuit 1. If I have phase information from the transmitter signal at the receiver, then I could differentiate it from all other circuits because the phase will be reversed in all the other circuits.

I am guessing the current injector probes must be clipped on in the orientaion shown in the photo. I do not believe this was mentioned in the manual. At least this controlled orientaation would be required for my assumed theory.

I will conjector that short bursts of several cycles of the injected sine wave are used. These would always start on the positive slope. At the receiving end a threshold detector senses the burst start. From this reference time the phase of the signal is determined. In addition to this coded information is need to define the particular circuit.

I expect it is much more complex than this simple concept, but I expect that they in fact have a useful workable system. It would be interesting to play with it.

.
 
If you need power to stay on and you want to connect the tracer at the breaker, wouldn't it feed across the buss to every other breaker on that phase ? When you put the transmitter at the outlet the signal weakens quite a bit by the time it gets to the panel so you still have "noise" on other breakers on the same phase but not as strong. My thinking is there would be a lot of false reading receptacles.
 
acrwc10 said:
If you need power to stay on and you want to connect the tracer at the breaker, wouldn't it feed across the buss to every other breaker on that phase ? When you put the transmitter at the outlet the signal weakens quite a bit by the time it gets to the panel so you still have "noise" on other breakers on the same phase but not as strong. My thinking is there would be a lot of false reading receptacles.
Click to expand...


well it gives the 'statement of how it works.
tasco circuit tracer said:
HOW THE CIRCUIT MAPPER SYSTEM OPERATES
Your Circuit Mapper is composed of two primary components: the Transmitter and
the Receiver.
The Transmitter ports are connected to the appropriate circuits using non-contact
inductive clamps. The clamps are secured around the insulated wire, greatly reducing
the risk of shock by eliminating the need for a live voltage direct connection. Clamps
are completely interchangeable as the digital signals are supplied by the Transmitter
with a different numerical code being generated by each output jack. The Transmitter
sends distinct digital signals to individual branch circuits on powered and unpowered
systems! The Transmitter indicates unit power, low battery state and is easy to check
by inserting the Receiver probe into the clamp or output jack.
The Transmitter first connects directly to the supply conductors, in the electrical
panel, using alligator clips. The unit has built in filtering that reduces noise or stray
signals between phases, neutral or ground.
The Receiver display indicates corresponding transmitter connection and a low battery
condition. The Receiver is programmed to recognize the specific digital signal
supplied to the line by each of the Transmitter leads. The signal must repeat itself
two times before the Receiver will indicate. This virtually eliminates the possibility
of false readings from signal jump. If there is no signal on the branch circuit being
tested, the Receiver simply indicates two bars. The Receiver recognizes up to 42 separate
digital signals, allowing the use of a single transmitter on any given panel.
TOLL FREE CUSTOMER SERVICE 1.800.999.9952
Click to expand...
 
080503-2252 EST USA

brother:

The Tasco description of "how it works" does not really tell you how it works because they leave out the critical information of how they differentiate the individual signals that are all tied together by the bus bar between the breakers.

That is why I provided my conjuctured discussion on how it might perform this differentiation.

.
 
gar said:
080503-2252 EST USA

brother:

The Tasco description of "how it works" does not really tell you how it works because they leave out the critical information of how they differentiate the individual signals that are all tied together by the bus bar between the breakers.

That is why I provided my conjuctured discussion on how it might perform this differentiation.

.
Click to expand...


ok fine with me. I would like to know if anyone has tried this one and did it work well for them. Ive used the amprobe pulsar tracers and they are fine. but like they said you can only trace 1 branch at a time and you have to plug it in at the end of the branch circuit and can only identify the breaker at the time. this you should be be able to hook up at the panel and just go around the room and it tell you what circuit it is. This would be alot faster and easier.
 
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