......something that can make random bleeping noises, accompanied by a real ly uninformative visual display, as you waft it around on a surface you nee d to drill into? My Stanley S200 stud and cable detector seems ideally suit ed to the job, but I wanted to check whether I might be missing out on some thing even more useless.
Cheers.
Terry.
My Bosch GMS120 seems capable of giving false positives and false negatives when scanning areas that I know do/don't have buried wiring.
My conclusion is I haven't found a good one yet.
Studs - test by tapping and a magnet to locate screws/nails.
Pipes - these do have some success with a good pipe detector.
Wires under plasterboard - nothing works, the whole PB sheet just looks "live" - I suspect being slightly damp and gypsum what it is, it's probably a bit conductive and distributes the electric field from a cable over a wide area. Solid plaster on brick is easier - the brickwork "earths" the plaster generally so the field is localised, but a sheet of PB on wooden studwork is like a big plate capacitor.
My theory anyway.
That's before you get into vapour barrier PB with (possibly) metallised plastic coverings.
My cheap/basic metal/live wire Aldi device:
Gives a few false positives on lath/plaster (lots of nails), no chance on plasterboard.
Pretty good.
Finds mains wires quite well, I always thought.
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