Underground Wire Tracer, VXSCAN F04 Underground Wire Locator with Earphone Cable Tester for Locating Breakage Cables, Irrigation Wires, Pet Fence

This just saved me a ton of time. Had someone come aerate our lawn forgetting about what it would do with our boundary wire.I spent hours finding breaks and it still wasn’t working. Ordered this and easily found 3 more breaks within 5 minutes of operation (not including repair time for each break).If someone says this doesn’t work, they either got a defective unit or its user error. Make sure you press the search button before trying to detect the signal, because that’s the button that actually starts the signal.

This wire locator saved me a ton of time looking for and finding my underground sprinkler wires. You have to follow the instructions and use an actual ground for the ground connection. Do not use anything that is considered a ground through your electrical system as that wire will also return an audible signal to the receiver. If you are testing for sprinkler system wires, don't use the common wire as the ground wire as it likely runs right alongside the wire you are trying to locate.I used this detector to find breaks in a couple of my sprinkler wires. In order to do this, you must tune the receiver to the sensitivity for that wire. For me, I know that my wires are 6-8 inches underground so I positioned the sensor 6-8 inches away from the beginning of the line and adjusted the volume for that distance. As I walked the line, when there was an audible change in intensity, I had a pretty good idea that I found my break. Note, that if you turn up the volume at that point, it will appear that the line is intact beyond that point. Understand that the signal is an electromagnetic pulse and that can jump across a break and may even jump to another wire. That signal will be weaker, but you can fool yourself if you start raising the volume mid-sweep. My impression is that anyone who couldn't get it to work failed to either properly ground it, or couldn't properly execute the calibration process.Overall this product did what I needed for a fraction of the cost that I would have paid a sprinkler guy. Next project is to locate a wire behind a wall so that I can install an outlet.

I used this to find a lost sprinkler valve. It’s not perfect, but if you learn how to use it, it will get you in the general vicinity. When you hear the beeping, you are close to the wire. The louder, the closer you are. You may need to turn the strength down on the transmitter a little bit if you’re picking up the signal in too wide of a range to zero in a bit. That part can be tricky, you’ve gotta turn it down a tiny bit at a time. Too much and you will not hear it. Keep playing with it and you’ll figure it out.

First let me start with how bad the directions are. They are written as if one xscan employee is chatting with another xscan employee who is completely familiar with the product. Let me provide some examples: "determine whether there is an interference sound" Ok , what is that and what should it sound like? How will i recognize a interference sound from any sound the first time I turn it on? My device makes this obnoxious reeroo reeeroo over and over again. Sounds like a police siren. Is that interference? Is that noise?? It sure doesn't sound normal but that is all it does. next example: "if there is interference change the place to test" - OK, I have no idea what interference sounds like but if I did, change it from what and to what?? You never told me where I should test in the first place nor did you provide criteria for a good or even bad place to test. So this instruction is completely useless to me. Next: "Under normal conditions without interference, the noise is very small" - OK, what are normal conditions?? I'm trying to find a broken electric fence line, is that normal conditions? Define normal conditions for cryibg out loud as its completely objective otherwise. How do I know if I have interference? Tell me what a valid sound is so I have some sort of reference rather than to simply GUESS. "the noise" - what noise? The obnoxious siren noise mine makes? The sound of snoring? what noise???? And this is just in ONE SINGLE STEP.I recently bought a chinese hot water heater off of amazon, it came with NO INSTRUCTIONS for operator use. I had to communicate with them through amazon. Talk about frustration. Not acceptable. This device came with instructions but they create more confusion than help, and I am an engineer who is very handy. Based just on the directions alone, I returned it but I could not get it to do anything useful either. My advice, go elsewhere, the frustration isn't worth it.

Had some trenching done and this helped me to locate a power line running to my backyard shed that was about 18" deep. I was able to locate the line and mark it entirely. The trenching showed the marks were spot on. This worked perfectly for my application. Fairly simple to use.