Oops... Fried my Tone Generator


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Old 06-27-14, 09:47 PM
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Oops... Fried my Tone Generator

Not an electrician, but I use a tone generator fairly often. Anyway I have a nice Fluke that I think is meant for telephone and low voltage stuff( it cost like $100). Well I think I left it connected to a hot feed for a couple of hours and now its not working so good. So I'm in the market for a new one. Anybody got a recommendations, preferably one that works when I turn the power on by accident.
 
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Old 06-28-14, 05:31 AM
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Dose it have batteries installed?have you tried replacing them? If you want a tracer that works on line voltage be prepared to spend some big bucks. Greenlee ,Ideal,Amprobe Google circuit tracers,it all depends where you plan on using it for residential use the cheaper ones would be fine.
Geo
 
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Old 06-28-14, 06:00 AM
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I will try to replace batteries. I'm trying to keep it around 100. Thanks. Yes it is for residential use, like when I cut out a wall and cut five power lines and 2 coax cables.
 

Last edited by bish80; 06-28-14 at 06:22 AM.
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Old 06-28-14, 08:05 AM
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Oh yeah........ BANG and smoke.
I have a small pile of fried generators.

I'm using a couple of the 77GX's. I have had them connected to 120vac and they have not been damaged. I was looking in the specs and the usual "do not connect to energized circuits" warnings are there. If you want I'll check into the construction of mine. I don't know if they are protected against a certain voltage or just well built.

Greenlee Tone Generator and Probe Kits
 
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Old 06-28-14, 06:53 PM
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PJmax,

Will these pick up a line that is behind the drywall?

I have been looking in to these for a while and non of the manufacturers make it clear if they can or can not detect through the drywall.
 
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Old 06-28-14, 11:24 PM
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Yes..... the generator has high and low output and high is fairly strong. That combined with a standard receiver wand will locate non metallic wiring behind sheetrock. Romex is very easy to find in the wall with that method. CAT5/6 computer type wiring is much harder to locate. BX and MC cable cannot be traced with this method.
 
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Old 06-29-14, 05:13 AM
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Remember that you don't have to use a specific pair. Cat 3/5/6 can sometimes be traced by connecting two pairs of (stripped) wires to one lead and the other pairs to the other lead of a tone gen.

Shielded cables and sometimes metallic can be traced if you use the conductors on one lead and the shield on the other.
 
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Old 06-29-14, 01:17 PM
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Thanks guys, very helpful.
I have some old NMD-1 that does not go anywhere close to the routing I first thought it did, so this would be a big help.
 
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Old 06-29-14, 10:35 PM
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Title cracked me up, so I'm adding my 2 cents.

I have an Extech 40180 Tone Generator. It's the least expensive tool that I've found, that does the job. I'm certainly no expert on these, but it seems to be the best bargain out there. Jacks for cat/3 cat/5, too.
 
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Old 06-30-14, 07:51 PM
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Thanks for all the input gentleman, I think I'll give the 77GX a try, It is only half the price of my Fluke.
 
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Old 07-04-14, 05:10 PM
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Hah....... I replaced the batteries and it seems to be working, I gonna have to test it against another tone generator, it was giving out false signals before, but seems to have stopped doing that.
 
 

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