Wire Tracing

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jp_electric

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anyone using a wire tracer from am probe.#at-4001.I'm curious how well it works and for any more info on one. it claims to pinpoint ground faults. does that mean if i have PVC,etc. 1 foot or so underground and i had a slight ground fault it would pin point it. any help would be great. I'm having a hard time getting specs on it. I'd rather hear from anyone who had operated one or own's one before i per sue on asking company
 
Re: Wire Tracing

Our water company uses a 12 awg tracer wire with all UG platic pipes , has done this for 20+ years. The locator we use is dead on accurate, don't know about the one you asked on.
Witching works too, but I don't want to go there. I once dug up a 8 " AC water line with a ditch witch, we witched something but were in the wrong location. Ditch witches are know as pipe finders. I also dug thru 12,500 VAC feed to a hospital with a ditch witch....it was located though, but was only 12" deep.
 
Re: Wire Tracing

well one particular job im working on. Has a gfci 15 amp breaker. it controles a gfci outlet and 2 outside lights. but when we get frost then defrosts the groundfault keeps tripping. usually when the pole light is on. which is located aprox 50ft from house. i was wondering if one of those tools would locate where im getting that leakage so i didnt have to dig the whole thing up. is that possible?
 
Re: Wire Tracing

We use a underground fault tracer and with expierence one can dig small holes to find the fault. But this comes with expierence, when our tech first started using the device they were digging large deep holes and often digging side ways to finally locate the fault. But these are FAULTS tripping 20 amp to 2000 amp CB's or fuses not a GFI in the milliamp range. The tech that does the cable tracing, fault locating did try one of the Amprobe tracers and was not happy with the results as compared to the other tracer fault locator.

Don't know the model of ours or the Amprobe model he utilized. Can check on Monday, if you'd like.
 
Re: Wire Tracing

JP
Have you checked the condition of the light socket at the pole? This frost condition may have caused some water into the socket, not enough for a regular breaker to trip, but a GFCI. That may be the reason it trips only during that type of condition, also check the wiring connections while you are at it.

Pierre
 
Re: Wire Tracing

Thank you all for your input.I have checked the fixture.visabally it seems ok like no water etc. the only problem is that it doesnt always trip. there was i slight resistance between the hot and nuet but not much at all. But thats probally whats doing it. they were doing some gardening over the top of the wire. about 3 ft off the light is incased in conduit and under the side walk is in conduit. but the rest is exposed only about 4-6 in under soil of the total distance to the home is about 60 ft. about 25 ft where they dug and it isn't in conduit.Do you guys suggest just digging the whole thing up and using pvc? and be done w/ it. they do have a gfci outlet off the back of the house and another outside light on the same circuit but it only seems to be happening when the pole light is on. What do you think?

[ December 06, 2003, 07:33 PM: Message edited by: jp_electric ]
 
Re: Wire Tracing

we have circuit tracers made by 3m and they are over ten years old but we can trace the routing of an underground circuit when the instrament is in the "surch" mode. had a splice problem with a light pole in a bank's parking lot and couldn't find the pull box????????? got the tracer out and followed the signal right to a new handicap slab they had installed - yep - right over the exposed concrete hand hole for the parking lot poles!!! i expect the new tracers they have on the market today are even better????
 
Re: Wire Tracing

being the problem is intermediate you would be making a positive move by replacing the wire to the pole and burying it 18" deep and out of harms way.
 
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