NOYAFA D3IN0580-B Underground Cable Wire Locator, Easily Locate Pet Fence Wires, Metal Pipes, Electrical Wires, Telephone Wire, Coax Cable

We had a break in the underground dog wire fence and could not locate the exact location - calling the dog fence company is $100 per visit so I took a chance on ordering this product and it worked great! Once I figured out how to use it, we located the wire and then determined that our neighbor's retaining wall was built on top of the line, so I just cut the line and strung a new wire to connect where the break occurred. I made a few mistakes first using the product, so here are some ideas on what worked for us.I located the outdoor panel which is energized from the box inside our garage. There are two wires coming out of that panel and going underground - one goes one direction around our yard and the other goes the opposite direction to form a complete circuit. I unplugged the power going to the box in the garage so we were working with un-energized wires. I turned on the unit that turns the wire into a receiver and attached both alligator clips to both wires and tracked the noise using the receiver. That worked, but I was able to track the line in one direction but not the other (of course the break was in the other direction). I then separated the wires and attached one clip to one wire and the other to a screwdriver which we grounded in the dirt (just pushed it in a few inches). I tried both wires and got the same result several times - we could find the wire going in one direction but not the one that we wanted. So, I disconnected the wires from the outside panel. In our panel there are two wire nuts which easily un-screw using pliers. We tried each wire separately after that and were easily able to track both wires, each going opposite directions. We followed the one that we wanted to the wall and then dug down and found the wire in just a few seconds. I clipped the wire, attached new wire to that side and then to the broken wire on the other side and it worked the first time. We filled the wire caps with caulk and re-buried the wire. Voila! Saved $50 for this time and more if the line breaks again. Total time invested - less than one hour, including learning time.The way the unit works is very intuitive. Attach the transmitter (see above), turn the receiver on high and then swing the wand close to the ground - the instructions say 6 inches, but I was using it closer than that. Start with where you know the wire is You will hear a static/radio noise when you are near the wire and then nothing (or a "null") when you are directly over it. As you swing the wand, you can follow the wire and then pinpoint it near where you need to dig. In our case, the retaining wall effectively put us out of business as we were not going to dig that up, but if you are not dealing with that, you should be able to find the break when the unit goes totally silent - that means you are not above the wire which is transmitting a signal to the receiver.

I purchased this for two reasons. First, to track down my irrigation wires. Second, to track down some Ethernet cables. For tracking down wires, it does a good job. It is somewhat of a brute force approach. You just have to place one banana clip on a wire, turn the signal unit on full blast, and those wires just get noisy. And not just the wire you clamp onto. Wires that are within close proximity to that wire also get a signal. I thought I was chasing down irrigation wires but I was chasing down phone and cable because they happened to cross paths with an irrigation wire. It didn't help that my irrigation wires had the same black sheath that a coax cable has. Either way, it found wires, quick and easy.Now the bad parts. It's not durable. The sensor already had its front cap come off exposing the internal sensor electronics. So, I'm going to gorilla tape that next. The headphone jack is just bad. I have to laterally push on the headphone jack to hear it, making me think the internal soldering is poor.. or the jack mechanism is poor. I only needed the headphones when trying to hear some "chatter" that was added to the line by my sprinkler controller, which worked by the way.Given the price of this and the usefulness of the unit, I love it. It is well worth it.

I used this to find a solenoid valve on my sprinkler.I had to play with this thing for a while to figure it out. I would not use the headphones, the sound can get loud abruptly.The sound is not really black and white. There is a bit of gray between nothing and definitive tone. You really want to hear definitive tone before you start digging, and I cranked the gain up to the max - WITHOUT the ear phones.My experience with this unit is that it has an effective range of about 2 to 2.5 feet max underground. I had an idea where the sprinkler controller was. I had to walk around for about 15 minutes scanning and scanning because I could not hear a definitive tone, more of a static tone. Finally, I moved one large pot next to the house and right above the ground I got not great, but good tone, enough that I started to dig. Close to about 2 feet down I began to wonder if this was leading me on a wild goose chase, but when I lowered the antennae into the hole I got a DEFINITE tone. Seemed a bit ridiculous, but I decided to continue down just to make sure. Well, the next shovel hit the sprinkler pvc pipe that had the wires wrapped around it. I then discovered that I had to follow this wire/pipe to find out where it was going. This was difficult because the path seemed to lead to a very heavily planted section of lyriope, which is why I didn't scan there to begin with. I had to dig several feet of trench, which lead up to this heavily planted section. I pulled out 3 large clumps of lyriope and dug some and there was the junction box/solenoid; I was quite surprised.So, it does work, but if your wires are buried 1.5 to 2 feet down, you have to have the antennae right over it to get decent tone. Also, as I mentioned, the sprinkler wires are wrapped around the pipe. You have to be careful when you are digging to NOT hit the wire or you will be digging a MUCH bigger hole than you wanted to. I also naively assumed that only the junction box would sound. You also might want to make sure you follow the tone to what you believe would be the junction box, like a corner, before you start digging.So, the device isn't great, but you are not paying for a great device. For the money, it gets the job done.

Initial test was with a 200' extension cable lying on the grass. There is a learning curve, but after a while it worked fine for the first 170 feet at a 2 foot height. After that signal got quite weak.I affixed a 1/4" dowel with a rubber band to the antenna pickup. Makes it a lot friendlier to use.Then I took it out to another property where there is 350' of buried electrical cable (10/2) at a depth of about 2 feet. I got the same kind of results - tricky but it will work for about 170 feet. You really have to listen carefully to find the cable. (Do not use the earphones - they will blast your ears.)I connected the RED lead on the xmitter to one of the wires, and the BLACK lead on the xmitter to a steel grounding rod. I also tried moving the grounding rod about 100' closer to the mid point of the cable I was trying to locate. Not much difference in signal strength, and still the limit of 160'.The next step for me is to hookup the Noyafa to the other end of the cable, and work backwards.The spec says good for 1000' length, and 3 foot depth. I would say 200' max at 2 foot depth. The 1000' might work for cable that is exposed such that you can actually touch the antenna of the receiver to the cable. A 1000' AND 3' depth will NOT work. A 1000' at 0' depth is a maybe.If the second step works like the first step, than it will be a useful product for me.M...

It worked great to find my sprinkler cables, but strangely enough it only works in one part of my backyard and not the other part and that is not distance dependent. I even brought it to about 6 feet of the borderline beyond which there is no signal to be heard and it did exactl the same thing crossing exactly the same delineation between the working and not working zones. I tried to find something in the info that came with the gadget and even on their website, but couldn't find any answer.

Despite following all the instructions, I was not able to locate a low voltage landscape wire under my patio tiles. I purchase this with intent to locate the wire and fix the voltage drop that I had by fixing connections to the main power supply. It did not work even though I am certain that wire is in the depth that this device claims to detect. Wasted money

Works well. I have used it to locate buried low voltage (12 volt) lighting cables, buried 115 VAC wire in plastic conduit and a buried eaves trough drain pipe with a heating cable inside it. I haven't tried to locate coax cables, phone wires or water pipes yet, but I have no reason to think that it won't work for those as well. I simply used a 10" metal nail as the ground connection and that was sufficient to allow detection of a buried line over its entire length (150 feet).The instruction booklet is short, but clearly written and gives all the information you need to use this thing.

Trouver un cable souterrain à 36 pouces.L'appareil n'est pas efficace et ne réponds pas aux critères minimums du fabricant inscrits dans le manuel d'utilisateur et sur son emballage. Ne vendez pas ce produit, c'est un arnaque