I have asked some electricians in the past if a product like this exists and was told no, Fact is it does exist they were just too cheap or lacked the knowledge of this tool or perhaps it saves time, and the electrician may not make as much money. I am not an electrician but with this tool i was able to locate a line break in my home within 5 minutes that had 8 outlets dead. I recommend the purchase even if you only use it once the price overpaying an electrician thousands.

I was an electronic control technician for a number of years. This thing would have saved my ass on numerous occasions. I've used it several times already and has been an invaluable tool at a farm we recently purchased. (Wire locates, shorts, and breaks.)It also works great for finding breaks inThere is an odd guy on youtube that did about a 20 min video on the thing. You'll want to watch that if you buy this. The directions aren't great and you need to change sensitivity depending on what you are using it for. It also works well to inject a signal over live power.For what it costs I'm impressed. *** Make sure you ground the black side.

True and nothing more so if you're considering this, read the WHOLE review!I needed to label a mess of an electrical panel and sub panel that someone added to many times... to be most polite, they should never touch electrical again! Not even in their own house. Especially in their own house. (Ever see two triple-taps of 12 under a DP70A running to an outdoor breaker panel to underground 30A to a garage..?)Being the most, errr, "complicated" house I ever mapped, I finally bought a Klein ET450. I'd say it's pro, cheaper than an Ideal at around four times the price... but still about $250.I did the job, and it was still a nightmare; the Klein is accurate, mostly, when transmitting on a powered line AND grounded AND reading at the panel. Easy enough for receptacles. But, this is annoying when trying to locate a lighting circuit; who wants to run around the house unscrewing bulbs to hook up a transmitter adapter. And the signal seems to evaporate if not grounded. I thought I could use it to transmit at the panel into the line, even dead, then run around the house tracing the signal to the receptacles, switches etc that it fed. I understood that I could literally trace, say, NM cable through the walls! But no matter how I tried, I got sketchy results at best.(I'm assuming that the Ideal would do it at $1200..?)Enter the NOYAFA NF-826.I thought I'd try so I ordered it anyway.Yes "cheap chinese crap etc".In my opinion it blew away the Klein!I saw many reviews stating that it doesn't work, the instructions are stupid, buttons don't make sense yada yada.Maybe someone did get a bad unit; it happens, that's life.I agree the instructions are translated a few times and badly. The buttons/functions could be better, but I definitely understood how it functioned; I barely looked at the manual (more on that later!)Since I already finished the job with the ET450, I finally opened the Noyafa tonight to play with it; I was really planning to send it back but was curious.So I played with it... in my own house, that I personally wired, including a new panel and circuits throughout when I moved in, adding to old KT and recently adding a sub-panel and more new circuits... so I know where _everything is! Not only did it pick out breakers at the panel, but I _was able to reverse it as I'd hoped by injecting the signal at the panel and finding the receptacle upstairs... from a few feet away!Know this before you buy so you won't send it back saying "it doesn't work."Like many similar items including true pro level, there IS some signal cross-talk between conductors, circuits etc. Always. Seems worse on live circuits and parallel stuff like NM (Romex). That's why many people said things like "I plugged into an outlet and it (Noyafa) showed was several breakers; turned them off and the outlet was still on!" Well... I got that with the Klein sometimes!Here's the thing. You need to understand the tool.I could never affords the best (ideal?) so I don't know how it might handle this, but the Noyafa not only has 3 levels of transmitting strength but 8 levels of detection strength. There are also ways to mitigate cross-talk and similar problems. By setting high TX at the panel and starting high RX I was able to walk around my house with the receiver at waist height and spin around every few feet to hit the right receptacle! Errr, but I still got some signal at various nearby switches, other outlets etc. As I lowered the RX sensitivity and started to narrow it down, those 'false' signals vanished.Other similar tests showed I could read the hot wire in the Romex (open basement joists); literally, by adjusting the TX & RX levels, sometimes with the line dead at the breaker, I could move the tip of the receiver to each side of the NM sheath and _every _time get the signal on the one same edge ONLY. That is impressive!! I also traced the same line (I KNOW where it is in the basement ceiling stapled three inches down along the main joist) through the floor above!I don't know if the naysayers got bad units, don't understand how it works, or are not patient.It works. (Can't vouch for underground landscape wiring; didn't try. Don't see how would be any different than the tests I _did run; this thing is _strong and _sensitive.)Finally, the manual. Yes it's crap. But mostly OK English. When I finally read it, a few things jumped out at me that _really impressed:First, they pointed out a method (with diagrams) where (if you spring for a second transmitter) you can trace a break in a cable (they show through walls and that's the whole point of this thing primarily) by using a TX at each known end on a DIFFERENT channel..! Get this; as you trace the cable, the receiver will suddenly tell you that it's reading the other channel, and that's the break in the line! Yes, you can use up to 6 TX units each on a separate signal and the RX unit tell you... wow I wish I could afford five more - I could plug all six into a house's second floor, run to the panel, and identify six circuits at once, or see that several rooms are on the same! Or reverse that at the panel, on _live circuits, take a note pad through the house, and map dozens of lights, switches, outlets in one go!Oh yes... it's about a hundred LESS than the Klein.Not knocking the Klein, but, guys at Klein, you could learn a few things from Noyafa...

I cut some wires in a remodel that I was doing and lo and behold they weren’t supposed to be cut. Used this to locate the ones that needed to be reconnected to the power source and stripped out the remaining that were truly dead.

The reason for my work made me need a tool for detecting wires. After many comparisons, I chose this product. It is very powerful and basically covers the troubleshooting methods that electricians need to troubleshoot daily, no matter whether the line is powered or not. The path can be detected inside the wall or in the underground soil. Its sensitivity is adjustable. After using it several times, I found that when the sensitivity is adjusted to the minimum, I can judge the location of the line more accurately, especially the built-in battery can be charged anytime and anywhere. I was troubled by the electricity, and the after-sales service also helped me solve the problem of the probe and the manual in a timely manner. It is recommended that the manufacturer can upgrade the cloth bag storage to a plastic hard box storage, which is more convenient to carry.