ECN Forum Forums General Topics of the Trade General Discussion Area Circuit Tracers

UPS Equipment, and even Battery Back-up Emergency Ballasts will cause most Probe-Type Circuit Tracers to react as Airborne-Ed has described (pick up tone + hot signal on several Breakers).

Although similar results were experienced (using the Amprobe 300/900 tracer - circa 1996 and still going strong!), I never experienced the scenario which Ed encountered - Hot Signal on several Breakers, no signal at the Breaker of the traced Circuit.

I always got a Hot - Distorted signal at 3 separate Breakers, along with the Breaker of the traced Circuit.

Careful observations of tone quality + indicator lamp flash rates, while "sweeping" the probe across devices + wires in separate directions, resulted in finding the correct Breakers 100% of the time for me.

I would suggest to probe the wires themselves (at the Breaker's Terminal), when experiencing this type of distorted signal reception.
Trim the sensitivity down, and/or up, while verifying correct circuit.

BTW: Be sure to hold the probe (receiver) away from the Panelboard _BEFORE_ turning it on.
Hold it about 2'-3' away (like right next to your body), press and hold the "On" Button, then begin tracing.

If Settings &/or Sensitivity levels need to be changed, turn off the probe first, make the required setting changes, then begin tracing as described above (away from the Panelboard).

I haven't really used the Greenlee Tracing kits very much - have used the Amprobe / Pascar kits extensively.
With the Greenlee kits I used, they responded very much similar to the way the Amprobes did, when tracing out a distorted signal.
Only major differences were the lack of multiple selection/sensitivity points, and verification was much more subtle, as compared to the Amprobes.

Scott

At least these tracers get you into the right panel. For commercial service work you normally cannot kill power to suit yourself.

If possible I bring an extension cord to the troubled receptacle and attach a plug tester. I drag it to the panel and flick a few breakers. That's a permissive environment... like doping out the circuits at the start of a TI demolition.

Cell phones and a helpful/needy customer usually locate light circuits PDQ.

Non-contact tracers are of such limited utility (Greenlee 2007 or 2011) that I rarely break mine out.

I do like the Greenlee 801K for de-energized circuits in a hot system.