tone probe sets

[Stephen]

Hello,

I was looking at the Tenma brand (is it cpc's own brand?) tone and probe sets. I'm not a telecoms nor IT professional, so it would just be for very occasional DIY use..

I see they sell:

which is half the price of:

I can't find any online manuals and the photos are not great on the cpc web site, so what is the difference and is the second model worth paying twice as much for?

As far as I can see, the dearer model has an rj11 plug, which would make it useful for testing phone lines, though I would need a BT to RJ11 adaptor to be able to use it.

How is the other model terminated: crocodile clips?

Has anyone used either of these, and if so, are they any good, or do you recommend another make or model?

Thanks, Stephen.

[Adrian Caspersz]

I use the dearer model for tracing network cabling. Works well for me, but I note the other has some detection of telephone line live states that mine hasn't.

This is similar in function.

How to use a tone generator and probe to locate cables

[Andrew Mawson]

Mine is a Tempo 200EP with the "77HP Tracer 2" tone generator from Progressive Electronics. Same one is used by BT. I find it absolutely wonderful :)

As well as it's conventional use tracing telephone lines and use on my CAT5 network I've managed to buzz out many wrong connections on a large (4 ton plus!) CNC lathe I bought as a project (now fully working :) ), and trace and find the coil of un-terminated cable a dodgy electrician had failed to connect to interlink my smoke alarm in the master bedroom to the rest of the house despite it being covered in many layers of glass wool insulation in the loft.

Got it for very little money on ebay - superb tool - doesn't come out often but when it does virtually nothing else would fit the bill.

Andrew

[John Rumm]

Yup I have the same one:

I quite often use mine with the tone injected by my lan tester rather than the supplied injector though.

[Windmill]

I have a cheapie from CPC, bought some years back, which does work but not very well. It seems to me that one should be able to pick up the signal from further away on the far end of a cable, instead of just very close to it. So if repurchasing I'd go for the more expensive one. But YMMV.