Circuit Finder/Tracer

[farseer]

Hi,

does anyone have experience with the GB Circuit Breaker Finder (Get-1200)? Ace Hardware near me sells this. I would like purchase a good reliable circuit tracer to:

-map out by circuit panel

-investigate certain issues with some switches in the house.

Are there any Circuit Finder/Tracers you can recommend?

thanks much

[RBM]

I owned one, which I recently tossed in the trash at my last shop clean up. Could just be me, but I wasn't able to consistently identify a circuit with it. Seemed more like a divining rod than a tool

[John Grabowski]

Save your money and use a radio or a lamp and flip the circuit breakers on and off. I'm an electrician who has circuit tracers and several meters, but the tester that I use the most consists of a rough service light bulb screwed into a pigtail socket. Sometimes I will put one of my flasher buttons in the socket and use my analog ammeter to find the circuit. The circuit tracers are nice, but many times you get false readings and need to continuously adjust the sensitivity to pin down the correct circuit. I usually reserve the tracers to situations where you cannot flip circuit breakers on and off to find the correct one such as in an office building.

My favorite tracers are the ones made by Amprobe. They used to be Paser until Amprobe bought the company.

[farseer]

Are you referring to the GB Circuit Breaker Finder (Get-1200) or these hand held tracers in general?

thanks much.

RBM (remove this) wrote:

[RBM]

[Bennett Price]

As others have suggested, a lamp or radio is great for ID'ing sockets and breakers. But if you need to find wiring inside a wall, the circuit tracers can't be beat. I've got one from Radio Shack and it works exactly as expected. In the breaker panel, things can be a bit ambiguous but the sensitivity control helps a great deal.

farseer wrote:

[Tom The Great]

IMHO:

Check Amazon they have a few reviews.

I purchased a 'version' of this type of circuit finder, and found it unreliable (not 100%) in finding circuit breakers. I strongly believe with that, the idea of tracing wires in a wall seem unrealistic.

As for a circuit tracer for wires, I've been eyeing an IDEAL model. Expensive so didn't run out and get one. Sorry.

As for problems with switches, maybe posting the symptoms will get you good suggestions.

later,

tom @

[farseer]

[John Grabowski]

Turn it on. Flip breakers off until the light goes out. It would be useful to have a helper for this who can shout when the light goes out. You could also get a screw in adapter for a light socket that enables you to plug something in. Then you could use the radio method.