[sdiy] ot: tracing power cables in a house

[Lincoln Fong]

>>it seems i could (at the non-basement end) inject a sound source (radio
headphone out) into the wires (hot to one wire, and >>ground to another) and
use alagator clips or test probles connected to a speaker to find the
terminating end in the basement.

I have been doing this for years with an LED (actually 2 LEDs so you don't
have polarity issues) but have just decided on getting an inductive speaker
probe to save all the messing about. I work in a building where there are so
many data/video/audio cables in the walls that a given cable could lead
almost anywhere, not to just one place.

A while back I got sick of all the running around and got a PIC based kit
made by Maplin (www.maplin.co.uk in the kits section about 20 GBP) which can
identify 8 cores at a time (if you have a single known core) which was quite
good but if you ask me induction is best because you can 'sniff' cables
without connecting to them saving you hours.

Lincoln