Wire Tracer Opinions

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I would beg, borrow or rent one until you can get another Amprobe. Can't beat the Phasar.

Grainger should be able to get you one overnight.
 
I don't own one, but have been considering buying one. My supplier can get both ideal and amprobe. He says his ideal rep claims thiers is better than amprobe. (Of course) I'd be interested in hearing from anyone with the ideal.
 
This topic came up once before, and there were a suprising number of comments against the Greenlee kit. The general consensus was that the Amprobe was great and the Greenlee was a good doorstop.

I didn't see the option to buy just the transmitter on Grainger's Web site; they have the AT-2005, which is what I already own. I only need the T2200 transmitter unit, not the whole kit, which costs $1000. I'm not about to drop another grand just for the transmitter.

In addition to the current job where I still need to find the short, I got two more calls today about short circuits, so I couldn't wait on Amprobe to repair or replace my transmitter (still under warranty), as I'd have to get a return authorization and mail the transmitter to Florida. I'll still pursue that, but in the meantime, I bought the supply house's last Ideal 61-956 kit today for $581 with tax. It's the same as the 958, but it doesn't have the clamp attachment for inducing a signal on a live wire. My Amprobe kit has one, but I have never had a need to use it.

I'm going to read the manual on the Ideal tonight since I have to find that short circuit tomorrow. I'll report back on how the Ideal compares to the Amprobe.
 
I've been happy with the Greenlee. The one I've got work on live or dead stuff equally well. Found some buried PVC a couple of weeks ago and saved chipping up a whole floor to find the pipe.
 
jeff43222 said:
This topic came up once before, and there were a suprising number of comments against the Greenlee kit. The general consensus was that the Amprobe was great and the Greenlee was a good doorstop.
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I would have to disagree. I have the Greenlee tracer and have had very good success with it for half the cost of the Amprobe Phasar.

I have used the Amprobe also.

$1000 vs $500 you decide.
Both are excelent tracers.
 
I'd go with Phasar great, Greenlee good. But again there is a sizable difference in cost.
 
I got my amprobe (without the current clamp and signal booster) (AT-4003 I think) for about $550 and love it.

Mark
 
The first time the transmitter stopped working, it took me a little while to realize I blew the fuse on it when I energized the circuit I had it hooked up to. Now I know when the blinking red light is solid, it means I should have disconnected the unit before I flipped the breaker.

This time, the first thing I checked was the fuse. My multimeter said it was good, and I put in a new one just for fun. It also failed to work. The fuse holder on the unit is tight as far as I can see, so I called Amprobe today and made arrangements to send them the unit so they can repair/replace it.
 
I got to use the Ideal 956 tracer last week, and I have to say I do like it a lot. I was able to find that short I was looking for without much difficulty, and I also used it to trace the wiring from a switch through a very convoluted path to the lighting outlet it was connected to.

The Amprobe definitely costs a lot more, and one advantage I see with it is that it is more adjustable than the Ideal. There are more settings on the units, and they can be fine-tuned a bit better than the Ideal. Then again, I'm not sure this level of detail is really all that useful. The Ideal has four settings, and I was able to find what I needed easily by using them.

The Ideal has the advantage of allowing the transmitter unit to be used on live or dead circuits, while the Amprobe requires separate devices for each. I also found the Ideal more user-friendly, and I was able to get up to speed on it much more quickly than I did with the Amprobe. Also, the Ideal seems a lot more rugged than the Amprobe, and I'm not just saying that because the Amprobe transmitter is broken. The Ideal looks and feels like it's built better and is less delicate than the Amprobe.

My hunch is that I'll use the Ideal as my regular tracer from now on and will break out the Amprobe only in cases where a trace gets tricky.
 
I probably own more circuit tracers than I will ever use in

I probably own more circuit tracers than I will ever use in

The amprobe is awesome you can probably pick one up on ebay for less than 400 used or the greenlee less than 300 used. The problem with the greenlee is that it is too simple most people were taught that when you shut off the breaker the signal should stop but with the greenlee I have found that it transfers automatically from passive to active mode and transmits signal from batery source. this confuses people who dont read the instructions.
 
Have you guys ever found high-resitance leaks with these wire tracers? Can the signal get thru high-z leaks like a megger, or is this no substitute for a real megger?
 
I've never tried to trace a high-z leak, but I imagine it could be done. I don't recall offhand if that particular task was one that was listed in either manual. My guess is that a megger would be better for that.
 
Jeff - which model Amprobe do you have. I'm trying to determin which model I should invest in, and am looking for feedback.

When using it to locate an open or shorted wire, how is it set up to find either of these scenarios? Finding an open seems a little intuiative - you could just trace the wire around until you find the "end" - but for finding a short - I'm not seeing how this is done??

Thanks

Brett
 
I have the Amprobe AT-2005 kit. It works well when the transmitter isn't broken. :D

There is a switch on the unit that allows you to choose open vs. short when doing a trace. There are instructions as to how to go about doing either kind of search.
 
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