Split Thread Electrical wiring and building codes

[bruto]

I agree that a sniffer can give false positives as well as negatives, but a false negative will kill you, while a false positive might just mean you need to test more.

It's true that you can do most things with just a meter anyway, but the sniffer makes some things much easier, because you can trace current without actually connecting to it, making it easy to track continuity without probing into sealed wiring. And since it tells you if current is present, it saves you having to probe to find out. I've worked with only a meter for many years, but I'm happy to have another tool in the box.

Once again, I think it depends on what you're doing. It's not life-or-death reliable for many things, but it is very reliable for detecting a change. If you look for current and get no buzz, you have a clue but not an answer. If you look and get a buzz, you know something but possibly not what you want to know. If doing something changes from buzz to no buzz or the other way around, it has actually told you something useful about what you did.

 

[Thermal]

I agree that a sniffer can give false positives as well as negatives, but a false negative will kill you, while a false positive might just mean you need to test more.

It's true that you can do most things with just a meter anyway, but the sniffer makes some things much easier, because you can trace current without actually connecting to it, making it easy to track continuity without probing into sealed wiring. And since it tells you if current is present, it saves you having to probe to find out. I've worked with only a meter for many years, but I'm happy to have another tool in the box.

Once again, I think it depends on what you're doing. It's not life-or-death reliable for many things, but it is very reliable for detecting a change. If you look for current and get no buzz, you have a clue but not an answer. If you look and get a buzz, you know something but possibly not what you want to know. If doing something changes from buzz to no buzz or the other way around, it has actually told you something useful about what you did.

I usually just want to know hot or not, so it serves my purposes pretty well. Only once, the damned thing kept telling me an old knob and tube wire was hot, till I physically traced it down and found it connected to nothing at all. It was 3 1/2 stories off the ground, where the house's original service came in to a wooden box (!). Still can't figure out if it had something to do with the altitude or what? It was extremely consistent and the detector gave no bad readings anywhere else.

 

[Dabop]

I've used them myself (handy for 'tracing' the path of a cable) but yes, very prone to false results both positive and negative- I would never trust one for 'checking for dead' and here, that wouldn't be legal to do so anyway- (you are, as a sparky here required- by law- to do the 'testing for dead' procedure as in my link previously- not doing so can get your licence suspended, or even revoked)
And a non sparky shouldn't be touching the wiring at all here- end of story...

The results show the difference- the US is around 2.89 per 100000 deaths in the US for those working as electricians (and these are supposed to be the 'pros' lol), while in Australia its 0.1 per 100000

https://www.esfi.org/workplace-safety/workplace-injury-fatality-statistics/

https://www.aihw.gov.au/reports/injury/electricity-and-air-pressure