Triplett 3388 Fox & Hound HotWire Live Wire Tone and Probe Wire Tracing Kit with Adjustable Sensitivity - Traces Wires from 0 ~ 250 VAC and up to 1000 ft,Black

Pretty fantastic tester compared to:(a) the price, in view of what my local supply shops were asking for similar Ideal and Fluke products (neither of which could do live circuits), and(b) my network cable tracer, which in the past has worked on AC wiring in a pinch, but doesn't have great rangeI used this unit to trace a ridiculously long bedroom circuit that had a mystery short. I traced something close to 200' of 15 gauge, including through a section of 18" concrete floor that has a 6-inch topping slab on 2 inches of foam insulation over it, and also through about 50' of 12 inch concrete wall, loaded with double rebar.Steering this probe requires a bit of patience, trial and error, and disconnecting a few junction boxes along the way. There's the potential for bleedover into parallel wires, and the signal will propagate through common neutrals (actually a good thing -- caught a few that shouldn't have been!), but with a little bit of attentive use it becomes pretty easy to figure out good from bad leads.As others have stated, NOT a good circuit breaker finder. It'll do in a pinch, but I recommend spending the few bucks on the dedicated tool if that's what you need.The live wire function works flawlessly, the tone generator is adequately loud and discernible, and I got much more use out of the continuity tester than I imagined, mainly because it was already connected to the wires, vs. disconnecting and clipping up my multimeter.So while this tracer doesn't work miracles and has a bit of a learning curve, it's really great at what it does, especially for the price. Wholehearted recommendation.

I've got what I call the "shot-gun". That one it the big one with the hand held wand, "looking' underground long distances for the wide range.the second one is the '22'. That one is the absolute wire in the panel. the extreme detail compared to the shotgun Blast, you might say.Well, this one...This one is the combo of what I explained.I still use those other two when the detail is extremely needed or the wide/deep range is needed but this one is not as wide range of 70ft underground at 700 ft away nor is it the absolute "22" accuracy of the sencond one explained.This is a great unit all around.Strongly recommend6 YEARS LATER....This guy still works like a champ!I am now retired but use it often enough to keep handy to grab easily and conveniently.It's a great piece of equipment for anyone who does any kind of electrical work as a pro or as I am now, an old retired guy who can't stop working on someone's electrical when needed!Battery life span is longer than a year in mine. I just replaced the 9V in the receiver of it even though it was still a good battery, being a couple years old at this point or even longer.Very reliable. A great tool for the sparky to find what he's looking for in the walls, the other side of the building or even underground at some level.I would make sure I had this if life started all over as a sparky again! It's something everyone needs in their life.

This uses radio frequencies to trace where your line goes. It works for both AC and DC lines. But you need to be warned - it will easily receive AM strong radio signals and other RF signals (such as from fluorescent lights) to the point where it will drown out any signal that is injected into the line that you are trying to trace. You will need to be able to get within a couple of inches of the signal to receive it. One hint about tracking CAT5/CAT5e cable - connect 4 of the wires to the black (e.g. Orange/striped orange & green/striped green to black) and 4 wires to red) - that will provide you with enough signal in the wires to trace. There are many times where the only way I can use it is in continuity mode where I need to short the lines to tell if I have the right one. If you are tracing already connected phone lines that are all connected somewhere, it can't distinguish them. So like many tools - it works fantastically for some situations and not others, it isn't magic, but can be a life-saver for the right situations.

works as advertised, but did not work very well when I tried to trace a live circuit from an outlet that also had a window air conditioner plugged in. I turned off that A/C unit and unplugged it and then was able to use the Hound to trace the path from the outlet back to the main panel, which is only about 10 feet away.I already knew what breaker in the panel was involved, but I tried to see if the Hound would tell me. As Triplett says in their video, there are far better tools for identifying the exact breaker.

This works very well with live wires and long cables. It can be a challenge isolating the specific wire in a bundle, but it can be done.

I *really* wanted to like the wire tracer. I hired an electrician that didn't bother to show back up to the job site to finish he work so I had to trace a few wires. Mind you, I know that the wires are about 36" away from the exterior walls so I figured that finding the wires would be pretty simple. The wires branch off of a switch that lead to the ceiling for some LED puck lights and are no more than 8 feet long.I figured this would be an easy job for the Fox n Hound. Boy, was I disappointed. The first thing I noticed when taking the device out of the box is the flimsy storage case. It's very thin and flexible and most certainly won't last at a busy job site. Straight out of the box, one of the magnets fell off of the transmitter case because it wasn't glued on properly.I read the instructions - twice - and was ready to spend all of five minutes finding the end of two wires. What should have been a quick and dirty job turned into a two hour ordeal scanning back and forth from the beginning of the wire to the ceiling. The only thing this tracer found was the transmitter and only when the transmitter wasn't hooked up to any wires. As soon as I hooked up the tracer to the Romex wire, the signal decreased *significantly*. I absolutely know that the wire travels vertically up the wall from the switch to the ceiling but the tracer couldn't even find that wire. I have drywall on 3/4" furring strips so the wire is no more than 1" below the surface of the drywall.I read the instructions again, watched several videos online but I was unable to find the wire even three feet away from the wall switch.The instruction manual sets a pretty low bar and states, (I'm paraphrasing): "Other methods may be better at finding wires." Well, there's no way it could have been worse.I'll have to hire an electrician with a professional grade tracer like a Fluke. This one is going back to the vendor.

1. You need two 9-volt batteries.2. Pay attention to the lock button (see instructions)3. Practice using the Fox and Hound in all of the possible configurations on known circuits. It will save you time when you can't see any cables.Unlike so many other testers, the flexible design of the Triplet Fox and Hound means you have to know the nuances in order to get the most out of it. I first saw a Fox and Hound used around 1960 to trace underground wires and pipes. I was fascinated, but I can remember the electricians and plumbers talking about how proud Triplet was of their tool. Also, only one of them knew how to use it. The others were clueless.It is still well made, and I expect years of service.Read the instructions--the operating instructions. The way RF works will surprise you even if you are a HAM. I had cables from two circuits running very neatly next to each other for about 7 feet, and the RF propagated from the circuit under test to the second circuit. Since it was all in the wall, it caused some confusion in the attic when I started looking down a cable that I was certain was a different circuit. Also, a magnetic contactless charging unit was plugged in to the circuit under test, and It put a signal on the cable for some distance back that completely obliterated the warble. Finding and unplugging it resolved the problem. There are also hints in the operations instructions about how to ground the tester for underground RF detection. Save yourself some time and read the instructions first.Also there are different testing modes, and the section on "finding the NULL" is highly useful.Lastly, on the Hot-Wire version of the Fox, note that the selector switch locks in the "OFF - Continuity" position and to move it one must press the tiny red button just above the switch to move it.I love this system. Just stay calm and think about what it is doing, then read the instructions again.

This tracer has a purpose, and kind of works well but at the same time will make you very frustrated. I had a Greenlee tracer 20 years ago that was more accurate but you needed to be very close to the wire. In the situation I needed the Hound for the break in the wire was somewhere in the ceiling or wall, but I wasn't sure. For following the general direction of a wire these can work as long as you don't have a bundle of wires running together as this operates with radio frequency, like a mini radio station that it uses the wire you connect to as an antenna. If the wires are bundled together the radio frequency bleeds into all the bundled wires and all the legs. To isolate the exact wire the only way you can do that is by turning the breaker off, hooking the black into one wire, usually the ground, and the red onto the wire you want to find. If you short the wire together it will change the tone. So if you have a 4 gang box with 4 4way switches then it is helpful in finding each wire as you can short them. In my exact situation I had drywallers at my house while I was not there. They ended up drywalling over an electrical outlet box that also just happened to be the main connection for the run back to the breaker box. I would disconnect the wire from the breaker and start following it in the ceiling and over to the wall that I knew I brought it down. The problem is the main run came down the wall and went into the drywall covered box, but then split two different directions for multiple outlets. The bleed from the RF signal would make you think the outlets in the chain had connection but they didn't. After virtually eliminating every other option I ripped the drywall off when the line was coming down the wall and the box was there.Just understand that if you are looking for a break in a line that it can be very difficult to find as the RF will jump the break and give you false readings.

Me llegó un producto defectuoso, el día que llegó lo probé y le instalé pilas de 9V nuevas a cada aparato (Transmisor y receptor) y al probarlo como indica el manual, la batería en el tester del transmisor, nunca prendió el LED, probé con pila Duracell nueva y lo mismo. Lo devolveré

This device helped me find hidden wires in the walls of a project.

Works great, nice little kit.

I was trying to find one CAT5 cable, that goes from one meeting room to server room. I used 2 pairs of cable. The distance was around 20 meters, not more. In the meeting room, where was connected the tester, the beeping sound was very loud. But in the server room I didn't find the cable more then one hour. After this, I used my old tester, and I found the cable in 2 minutes. The second tester I connected to the same cable, another pair of cable. Even when I found cable, I didn't have tone signal from the FOX tester. Very disappointed. I will ask for refund.

A bit on the pricey side. Worked as expected for tracing faulty house wiring.