Triplett hotwire fox Instruction Manual - page 8
Page 7
There are many different types of wire tracers using different technologies to trace wires. While a single
technology can be used to trace wires in many different scenarios, there is often a specific technology that
works best for a specific scenario.
While this instruction manual provides information on how to use the Triplett
HotWire
to perform various
wire tracing tasks, the user should be aware that in some cases, other testing devices may work better
than the
HotWire.
The principle use for which the
HotWire
is designed is, as its name implies, to locate
or trace a specific ‘hot’ or ‘live’ electrical wire. For this purpose, the
HotWire
works as well as, and often
better than, other products that use a similar technology.
Other Triplett Products
The
HotWire
can be used to identify Circuit Breakers attached to a particular wall outlet. However, the
Triplett
Breaker Sniff-It
usually works better for this application than the
HotWire.
The
HotWire
often
has difficulty identifying a specific circuit breaker, because the tracer signal used by the
HotWire
is often
distorted by the metal in the breaker panel, and the tracer signal crosstalks (more on this later) into other
breakers in the panel. The
Breaker Sniff-It
uses a different technology that usually positively identifies
the correct circuit breaker. The drawback to the
Breaker Sniff-It
is that it only works on ‘live’ circuits.
Additionally, the
Breaker Sniff-It
will not trace the path of the wire between the wall outlet and the circuit
breaker. The
HotWire
will work on ‘dead’ circuits (depending on why they’re dead) as well as ‘live’ circuits,
and it will trace the path of the wire.
The
HotWire
does not work well for identifying a specific wire in a bundle of wires. This is due to crosstalk
(more on this later). The standard Triplett
Fox and Hound
products
(Fox, Fox 2, Fox Jr, Hound, Hound
2, Hound 3,
and
Hound Jr)
use a different technology (AF) than the
HotWire
(RF). AF works better for
identifying specific wires in a group of wires. The
HotWire Fox
does have an AF feature built into it, but
the
HotWire Hound
does not work with AF. Most of the
HotWire
’s circuits are used to support its RF fea-
tures. AF was included in the
HotWire Fox
because is was easy to implement, and added some additional
flexibility to the product….. but AF does not work on live circuits. To use the
HotWire Fox
’s AF feature, a
standard
Hound, Hound 2, Hound 3,
or
Hound Jr
must be used.
The
HotWire
can be used to trace the path of a live AC power wire. In cases where there are numerous
hidden wires, the
HotWire
is a good choice for this task. However, when there are only a few AC power
wires in the vicinity, a possible alternative to the
HotWire
is the Triplett
Sniff-It 2.
The
Sniff-It 2
can trace
live wires through walls and ceilings. It cannot identify a specific live wire. It just detects any live wire. In
some cases, this is enough to satisfy a particular user’s needs.
6: General Characteristics