Finding the right wire, will a GB detector help?

I read the post about a GB type detector with a transmitter and receiver. But will it or something work with lower than 110 volts??

It's not 110v wires that I am confused by. I ran 4 pieces of telephone line to my attic, one for the telephone**, one for a burglar alarm sensor*** in the window frame, one for a smoke detector for the burglar alarm, and one I don't even remember what for.

Now the phone jack doesn't work and I want to splice in a patch in the attic instead of coming all the way from the basement again, but I don't know which of the four. I didn't label them because I thought they would never break. :( and there are a lot of empty boxes etc. making it difficult to physcially trace the wires. I can probably borrow the GB tool from a friend who installs burglar alarms. And I think it would be fun to use. If I can use it??

**The previous owner had sheetrocked over the phone jack!

***I know now, I think, that I shouldn't have used phone line to connect a sensor to a transistorized burglar alarm panel, but I had a lot of it. I read here, I think, that there is some twist in 4-wire phone line, but is it enough to keep currents induced by lightning from burning out an alarm?? I was leaving the house one day when I saw smoke coming from the keypad/control panel, and sure enough it didn't work anymore. I don't remember any recent lightning at that time, but did I make a big mistake by using phone line to connect to remote sensors? Thanks.

Reply to
mm
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Reply to
Robert Barr

Thanks, not so easy in that I may have to cut into all 4 wires, but it may be what I have to do.

(I wanted to splice into the middle of a wire, test on which side of that point in the wire is the broken wire, and bypass the part that is broken. )

Reply to
mm

If the GB detector is one where you plug a transmitter in a 120V outlet and locate a breaker with a receiver, they work by putting a current signal on the hot-neutral loop and detecting the signal. If you don't have a loop (open wire) they don't work. Also they work on 120V circuits

- you probably don't want 120V on a phone line.

Are there more than 2 wires at the phone jack - can you substitute another pair? Or find 2 wires out of all of them that work?

Phone repairmen use toners and probes like

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trace phone wires. The toner attaches to one end. If you can borrow one it may be useful to locate the phone wire in the attic.

If you 'tone' a broken wire and ground the other wires and other side of the toner you may get a signal on one side of the break and no signal on the other. (It worked on Romex with 120V as the signal and a Tic Tracer as the signal detector - may not work with a phone toner.)

If you can get a 'non-contact' voltage detector like a Tic Tracer

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could probably find the wire in the attic. Check the detection caapability (Tic Tracer says 30VAC). Put an AC signal on the phone wire

- a 24V transformer worked with the Tic Tracer. Try powering between 2 wires or all wires to ground.

-- bud--

Reply to
Bud--

Now that you point this out, my friend with the burglar alarm company is more likely to have one of the two devices you list below than he is to have the 120 volt thing I had in mind.

Darn, I should have thought of that.

I've read the rest and when it's a little warmer, I'll see if he has something like these things. (it's 20 again today. I put a remote thermometer in the attic, but the battery died. This is the battery that was in the thing when I bought it at Lowes 4 months ago, so it might be a year old or more, but I already know it's cold up there now.)

Thanks.

BTW, FTR I understand why I didn't label the phone wire. There was only one wire at the time. But I should have started labeling when there were more. Now it is hard to run a new wire from the basement to the attic because I also failed to leave the "traveler" would you call it, in place, a string or wire twice as long so I can tie a wire at one end and then pull it up to the attic from that end. There is still room in the hole, and I could drop a thin long weight through the hole, maybe, except I think fiberglass has fallen down there and will keep anything not stiff from getting through. At the time, with a 6 foot drill bit, a 1 foot extension, an electric drill, and the full length of my arm, I was just long enough to drill the hole. It seems like I should have been a foot or two longer, since I only have

8 foot ceilings, plus the height of the bottom layer of truss in the attic. Maybe it's cause the drill bit was flexible. Now of course, I'm 24 years older (60) and I can't decide if things are harder than they used to be or not. but they might be. :)

Reply to
mm

You could attach 2 strings (wires, ...) to one of the exsisting signal wires, pull the strings up to the attic, and pull the signal wire back down using one of the strings. The "traveler" string could be taped to the signal wire as it goes up into the wall so less of the signal wire has to be pulled up.

-- bud--

Reply to
Bud--

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