I have a bunch of single wire cables that start at the same place in my house but end up in different rooms. If the cable lengths consisted of 2 (or more) wires, then I know I could work out which cable run corresponds with which room using a multimeter set up for a 'continuity' test, but I was wondering how I could work out the same thing if each run only has a single wire.
Apologies in advance if this is a really stupid question!
You need two people (and power disconnected of course).
Lift a wire off, and measure the resistance to Earth, it should be high. Then No.2 goes round the house, shorting each possibilty to Earth.
Inquisitive said the following on 19/04/2007 09:38:
On 19 Apr 2007 01:38:49 -0700, Inquisitive waxed lyrical about:
Easiest way is to complete the loop. Don't know how many wires you've got to trace, but this would allow you to trace up to 8 at a time, and avoids a lot of the running around.
- get a long enough length of a cheap multicore cable e.g. Cat5 (8 cores) to reach between the convergence point and the most distant single wire
- strip back and twist one core from the cat5 with each of the single wire cables at the point where they all converge
- drag the other end of the cat5 to each single wire termination point
- do a continuity test between single wire and each cat5 core
repeat as necessary until you've identified all the wires
Perry
Thanks for the reply. Could you please give me a step-by-step guide how to do this (specifically how to measure resistance to Earth and how to short)? Do I use a multimeter to do this?
correctly - it generates some kind of 'tone' that can be easily picked up by another tool?
use another long bit of wire. Attach it to one of the unknown ends, then walk round the house with the multimeter attached to the fre end of the long wire. Try each of the free ends to find the one that the long wire is connected to is connected to.
What puzzles me is why are there single wires going around the place? What use would they be?
Robert
Yes - it's colloquially known around here as a "fox and hounds". You put the tone generator at one end and the (separate) probe then inductively picks up the signal at the other end. The signal can often be traced all along its route.
In message , Inquisitive writes
Are these mains cables possibly leading from where a distribution board was located? What sort of cables are they? Do you know why they are disconnected?
If they are old cables (VIR?) then re-using them may not be safe.
If you don't know how to check basic continuity then you are most certainly not skilled enough to even start messing with mains cabling.
Tony Williams wrote
(Speaking from the viewpoint of No2 ...) Would it be more efficient for No2 to start in one room, and No1 check through the cluster of wires at his end, before No2 moving to the next room?
Yes but it's *my* multimeter, which makes me No.1, so AFAIAC No.2 is going to do the running around. :)
Tony Williams wrote
Naturally.
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