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Finally got a proper cable toner and it paid for itself on the first job
I was tired of guessing which wire was which in old panels, so I dropped about $150 on a decent cable toner kit. Used it yesterday on a retrofit for a 90s house where the previous guy had just shoved a bundle of identical red 22-gauge wires into a junction box with no tags. The toner found the right zone wire in maybe two minutes. Before that, I would have been there with my multimeter and a helper on the phone for half an hour, easy. It felt like cheating. The look on the homeowner's face when I told them we were already testing the sensors was worth the price alone. What other basic tools have you guys bought that you now can't live without?
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matthew8641mo ago
My old multimeter method was way more reliable than those toners.
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river_reed24d ago
Calling that cheating is a bit much. A multimeter forces you to understand the actual circuit, not just chase a beep. Those toners can give false positives on bundled wires or in noisy panels, then you're worse off than when you started. Spending that much on a gadget for a problem you can solve with basic tools and some patience seems like a shortcut that could bite you later. Real skill comes from knowing how to trace a wire the hard way, not from relying on a fancy box to do the thinking for you.
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