I’m planning to map out all the circuits in my house to prepare for some modifications. I bought a circuit tracker that plugs into an outlet, with a probe that buzzes as you scan over the breakers to show which circuit it’s plugged into. What I find is that in some cases, two breakers provide equally strong signal. Could this be caused simply by the two circuits running side by side in the same conduit, or does it indicate that the two circuits are linked?
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Dunno, but try twisting the sensor sideways, and you may find it's more selective. Or remove the panel cover and place the sensor right up against the wire where it connects to the breaker.
First of all you might end up finding two breakers on one circuit,
But not being able to pick out a the right breaker using one of those is not an indication of such a problem.
Just too much cross coupling between wiring in the panel and even as they run.
I was working on a house with 2 main panels and a sub-panel off of one of those.
Often I would end up flipping the main breakers to first ID which panel it was on.
Here is some thing that worked for me. I have a small AM radio and tuned near the low end it would receive a popping noise from the transmitter. That had a little more range than the probe.
If If I did not hit it the first two time with the probe then I would start flipping the breakers and listen to the radio for the popping to stop.
Then I when back to the area where the transmitter was plugged in and used a tick tester to ID other devices that where on the same circuit (by now being dead).
Thanks for the replies. My problem was too much sensitivity, rather than too little. I got it sorted out, but thought someone might be interested.The problem turned out to be a noisy fluorescent light ballast that I turned on to see what I was doing when checking circuits in a basement room. Even without a transmitter plugged in anywhere, when turned on this light sends a signal that is picked up by the probe at the breakers. It does not pulse the same way, but it's just as strong as the signal from the transmitter. I suppose I should buy better fixtures, but interestingly, this one does not appear to flicker.