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Review on πŸ”Œ NF 816 C Subterranean Electrical Telephone Earphone with Enhanced SEO by Troy Arnold

Revainrating 4 out of 5

It works, but it takes patience and practice.

I used it to find 5 missing sprinkler valves in my 16 zone system. The missing valves were buried under 2-3 inches of dirt and turf. I even found a buried junction box and area with 2 valves. Of course, the last valve found was a defective one. Many reviews say it doesn't work for sprinkler valves, but it does. It just takes patience, time, practice and even more patience, but it works! My wife had previously paid a "professional" who couldn't find the valves. Charged me $300 for having the pleasure of telling myself I have a crappy system. So for me it wasn't a saving, it was a challenge. The first block sends a signal over the line, which the second block receives. You move the probe horizontally across the wire path and listen for a null (open signal) occurring directly above the wire. All of my missing valves (solenoids) were found in places of loud and wide signal propagation, but the wire itself was fairly consistent, with a rising tone, zero, then a falling tone. I found the boxes by probing the ground with a metal stick around the areas with a loud and wide signal. Feel and hear a knock on the box lid. According to reviews, it works best with Pet Wire and other single wire setups. It makes sense that a wire would be the easiest to trace. The problem with sprinkler wires is that they are connected and the signal is passed to other wires making it impossible to trace a wire. I quickly found two valves at the end of my system, but it took another 5-6 hours to find the one in the middle. One problem was that my bushes and flower beds are bordered by a metal strip which also picks up the signal, amplifies it and misleads me on numerous occasions. Also, my valves weren't in one neat place, they were scattered all over my yard. They were out of order. I spent hours looking for the missing valve 7, searching between the known valves 8-9 and 5-6, but finally found it closer to valve 12. The only helpful clue was that installers tend to fall in line follow to use the least amount of wires and wires. a tube. Although I followed many wrong conclusions, in the end all of my valves ended up on the same line that snaked around my house. I found the only power control to be useless. The signal is applied to all wires even at the lowest settings. I also didn't notice any difference when I connected the black clip to ground (screwdriver in ground) or to a common wire as suggested in the instructions. I just let it hang and only the red clip was connected to the chain wire. I have now also used it to run some CAT 5e cables. It's not designed for that, but it worked.

Pros
  • WARNING. Do not use on live circuits to avoid damage to the tester! This device is ONLY for detecting a dead wire
Cons
  • A little wrinkled