The SureTrace™ Circuit Tracer from IDEAL works great finding an open in a circuit as long as you know this tip. Grounding all the other conductors in the circuit will prevent the signal from bleeding into them making it harder to find the open condition in the conductor you are tracing.
Hi folks I’m Ron with IDEAL
When trying to use the Sure trace circuit tracer from IDEAL to find an open in a circuit.
The trick to make this task easier is to make sure all the other conductors in the circuit are grounded.
This will greatly enhance the circuit tracer’s ability to locate the open in the conductor you are tracing.
Here’s why that is so important.
Those of you that have watched any of my videos on using the Suretrace system
to trace breakers may recall that in these situations the Suretrace system works
by detecting electromagnetic radiation that appears around a wire when current flows through it.
When tracing open circuits clearly no current can flow, so in these cases the
receiver relies upon picking up electrostatic radiation from the wire that results when it carries a voltage.
You don’t have to worry about how it does this as the receiver looks for both
types of signal automatically, without you having to make any adjustments, but it
follows that for this mode to work most effectively we are looking to maximize
the voltage carried by the wire that we are looking for, rather than the current.
Voltage with respect to what you may ask?
The answer is to Ground, so we need to connect one terminal of the transmitter
to Ground, and all wires that we are not looking to trace should also be grounded.
That is the reason in step one of the finding an open video we suggest plugging in an incandescent lamp at the nearest outlet to the breaker panel.
This provides a conductive path from the open hot feed to Ground via Neutral.
It needs to be an incandescent lamp - modern light fittings such as LED and CFL will not do the job so well.
It is assumed that the Neutral and Ground conductors are also properly connected as they should be at the electrical panel.
Doing this effectively grounds all the conductors except for the open hot conductor in the circuit.
This is the preferred way to find an open condition.
If you do not ground the other conductors the signal may bleed into all the wires in the circuit and the chances of locating the open are reduced.
The other terminal of the transmitter connects to the section of wire that we have determined to be an open circuit.
Call the IDEAL customer service line or visit our website to find out more about the circuit tracer and a local distributor you can buy one from.
Hope that Tip helps you locate those open conductors.
Thanks for watching I’m Ron with IDEAL. #RonKipperDatacomm
