Best way to find an electrical "leak"?
- Thread starter HDRW
- Start date
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Yes it is a bit like the tone tracer used by the telecoms boys, but I think it puts a 3Khz signal.
You can tell which way wires are going by rotating the detector, in one axis the signal will be strong and the other it will be weak. Works up to 50CM away from wire. At the point of the "load" or short, the signal abruptly stops, then it is time to start digging. I have found waterlogged JBs and nails through cables with mine Which I believe makes me worth an hourly rate above someone pulling everything apart for hours on end. And as I said- if the fuse just blows there is very little on the market to tackle it. It is one of those things that doesnt get used that often but when it does there is not normally another easy way to achieve what it offers
You can tell which way wires are going by rotating the detector, in one axis the signal will be strong and the other it will be weak. Works up to 50CM away from wire. At the point of the "load" or short, the signal abruptly stops, then it is time to start digging. I have found waterlogged JBs and nails through cables with mine Which I believe makes me worth an hourly rate above someone pulling everything apart for hours on end. And as I said- if the fuse just blows there is very little on the market to tackle it. It is one of those things that doesnt get used that often but when it does there is not normally another easy way to achieve what it offers
I wonder if mine would do that too then, as mine sounds similar. I've never even thought of using it in place of a fuse on a faulty circuit though.
I've got this one:
It's one of those tools that spends most of it's life in the van, but now and again it's worth it's weight in gold. If people haven't got one then go out and treat your self. They are brilliant.
It took me quite a while to get the hang of how to use it but then it's brilliant.
If you've never seen one, there's a great video here:
I've got this one:
It's one of those tools that spends most of it's life in the van, but now and again it's worth it's weight in gold. If people haven't got one then go out and treat your self. They are brilliant.
It took me quite a while to get the hang of how to use it but then it's brilliant.
If you've never seen one, there's a great video here:
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Makes less of a bang 
You could try it with a series 1Kohm first
That should limit the current, mine can work in this mode under the magical 30mA. So there is no problem on split boards
That should limit the current, mine can work in this mode under the magical 30mA. So there is no problem on split boards
I have a Chesilvale JLS200 and a tone generator for it. Made by these folks now and similar to
http://www.tempo-textron.com/prod_detail.cfm?cat=800&subcat=803&pid=10417
The dedicated tone generator is designed to hook up to telephone lines still live at 50v but for mains obviously you have to kill the power. On mains T&E it has worked very well.
When it was new and I was working out what its capabilities were I traced quite a few old mains cables buried at varying depths in brick walls. Drew them in pencil on the wall and then dug them all out to see how well it performed. If the T&E is flat in the wall and close (within about 10-15mm) to the surface the line was drawn right down the CPC in the T&E. With increasing depth things got more vague but still very good and the probe was still useable for detecting T&E on the wrong side of a single brick wall. Detecting where a cable rose and ran across a ceiling in a wooden floor with 9" deep joists wasn't a problem.
Something that may amuse you Howard is that antenna theory comes into its performance. When the tone generator is across L & N the probe will actually detect the null in the radiated field between the two and is often a useful check that you have the right cable and are not detecting a rogue signal. The orientation of the cable does affect its performance.
I'm dying to know where this 700W is going
http://www.tempo-textron.com/prod_detail.cfm?cat=800&subcat=803&pid=10417
The dedicated tone generator is designed to hook up to telephone lines still live at 50v but for mains obviously you have to kill the power. On mains T&E it has worked very well.
When it was new and I was working out what its capabilities were I traced quite a few old mains cables buried at varying depths in brick walls. Drew them in pencil on the wall and then dug them all out to see how well it performed. If the T&E is flat in the wall and close (within about 10-15mm) to the surface the line was drawn right down the CPC in the T&E. With increasing depth things got more vague but still very good and the probe was still useable for detecting T&E on the wrong side of a single brick wall. Detecting where a cable rose and ran across a ceiling in a wooden floor with 9" deep joists wasn't a problem.
Something that may amuse you Howard is that antenna theory comes into its performance. When the tone generator is across L & N the probe will actually detect the null in the radiated field between the two and is often a useful check that you have the right cable and are not detecting a rogue signal. The orientation of the cable does affect its performance.
I'm dying to know where this 700W is going
Brilliant piece of equipment for tracing wires.
But not much use for finding where 700 watts of power is leaking other than to follow the cable that is carrying that power.
Join the queue. Lets hope the OP comes back and tells us where or what it was.I'm dying to know where this 700W is going
We won't be unkind and embarrass you if you find it was something you had overlooked.
In fact we are all on here to learn from each other, everything seems easy and silly after the problem has been solved. I once had a low reading on a circuit and went round and round. It turned out to be my laptop that I had put on charge in the kitchen. I had asked the customer to unplug everything, but forgot my own laptop. But it is a mistake I won't repeat
Well, it is looking rather like that, I'm afraid.
First I found I had misremembered what one of my testers was - I thought it was a PSC/Loop tester, but when I got it out it turned out to be a MultiFunction Tester, including insulation testing, so I unplugged everything around the ring, then went under the stairs and unplugged the UPS that's there, isolated the circuit and did an insulation test: 4.4Mohm! Which sounds pretty good to me (ohms law makes that about 55 microamps of leakage).
Then I thought: The UPS! I'm not sure I unplugged it when I unplugged everything else before...
So I think I've had everyone on a wild goose chase - sorry!It's quite a big beast (2200VA) and runs most of the computer & comms equipment, but I'm still surprised that adds up to anything approaching 700W. It reports its output load as 9.8%W, and as I believe 2200VA on this comes to about 2kW, that makes it about 200W of device consumption.
When I plugged it back in I put it through one of those plugtop power monitors to see exactly what it was using, but of course as it had been running on batteries it immediately started charging them, so the result (500W) wasn't much use. I need to go back under there and find out what it is when it's running normally.
I now need to work out a way to find out what everything that's permanently on is using, because a couple of laptops, a router, network switches and a number of Network disk drives really shouldn't take that much. I wonder what overhead current the UPS uses when it's not charging its batteries? I'll report back if I manage to find out, and/or if I find some other culprit.
So thanks again to everyone for your suggestions, and I'm really sorry it wasn't a very interesting solution!
Cheers,
Howard
Howard, don't be sorry and it's great that you came back to update us. Often these kind of threads on here are a little stumped by having someone on the other end with little experience and/or test kit. You're often limited in what you feel you can say to help them to keep things safe. So it's always much more interesting when it's somebody with a relevant background.
Without the update it's a bit like reading an interesting short story where somebody has ripped out the last page, and just when you'd put the kettle on too.
And I've come across Socket n See stuff which I've not seen before which could be handy.
Glad you've found the blighter. What kind of UPS is it and has it been any good? At some stage I really should get one. I've a dead UPC (1000?) one here.
Without the update it's a bit like reading an interesting short story where somebody has ripped out the last page, and just when you'd put the kettle on too.
And I've come across Socket n See stuff which I've not seen before which could be handy.
Glad you've found the blighter. What kind of UPS is it and has it been any good? At some stage I really should get one. I've a dead UPC (1000?) one here.
You'd be surprised how it all adds up.
It is vastly more interesting than no solution. I am glad you came back to us.
700W is a lot to lose - without explanation. If you calculate how much of your annual bill is for things that just get left on you'd be amazed how much you/we all waste every year.
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