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

My house is on a slab and was having a problem with my sink drainSent my snake into the pipe as far as I could and attached this tool to itNot only do I know how my pipes run I also found the problem.Had a guy out to look at the drain he told me I had a problem with my dry well that I don’t even haveWas a locator for several years using high end equipment and this little tool worked just as good

I've seen reviews that say this device doesn't work well. I, on the other hand, was surprised at how well it functioned. It was very easy to find my underground wiring that was also in a conduit. Well worth the investment.

I used this to track the wire to a sprinkler valve, found it in 5 minutes. Works ok as long as the wire isn’t buried too deep.

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.

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.

This product works but it's a bit fiddly and cheaply made. The unit I received did not seem to work at first but I finally found that by moving the signal strength potentiometers on both units back and forth I could find a spot where they worked, they didn't work at many spots throughout the range. If you get it working you will get the tone when you're within a couple of feet of the wire and there will be a small dead spot, no tone, directly over the wire. The included instructions are almost useless.Tips:If your valves are all located together this device should work without a problem because your wire signal will end near the valve box. If your valves are not located together, mine were not, then you may have a more difficult time depending on how the valves were wired. The wire bundle will most likely run from one valve to the next and if they terminated the wire at the corresponding valve, which I would think would be the correct way to install them, the signal will stop near each valve when you're connected to the corresponding wire. A little probing around the area should find the valve.For me, whoever installed my system did not terminate the wire at each corresponding valve. They tapped each valve into it's wire but let the signal continue on to the last valve box for every wire. This meant it was easy to find the last box but the signal did not stop on the corresponding wire at each valve in between. If you run into this situation then I would say to probe around anywhere the wire makes a turn or anywhere that the signal seems to be unusually large and confused, this is how I eventually found mine.

Barely lasted 1 year before it stopped working. I only used it 3 timed.