Underground Wire Tracer, VXSCAN F04 Wire Locator Tone Generator Kit and Probe

The instructions aren't entirely clear as some other reviewers have pointed out, but it's not overly complicated. First, turn on the Listener (the unit with the dangling antenna) and see if you pick up any noise when near your wire. It should be silent, otherwise there may be interference that affects the next steps. (Note, I could pick up some static from my lawnmowers base station... Unplugging the boundary wire eliminated that) Second, connect the red clip of the transmitter unit to the end of the wire, and the black clip to something metal you can stick in the ground (I used an 8" screwdriver, not sure if it has to be that long). Turn on the transmitter, then push the find button (magnifying glass icon). Now a signal is being sent along your wire, which you should be able to easily pick up with the receiver unit. It sounds like a toy police car ("wee-ooo-wee-ooo"). Very obvious. You should easily be able to trace the underground wire/metal/conductor by waving the antenna around to find the noise. This was definitely true for my lawnmower guide wire that was buried up to 3 inches. If at any point you lose the noise, your break is nearby (maybe not right there, but within a foot or two. Digging up the wire should be easy, since you know where it is (be safe if it's buried deep!) This worked for one of my wire breaks (when I dug up the wire it was clear there was a clean break), but not the other. But the second break was likely an incomplete break (I couldn't feel it or see it... But a multimeter confirmed a high resistance segment). I suspect the transmitter is a little too powerful for my use case, and overcame the partial break. Still, this device did a great job locating my wire and one break, so worth the cost!

Needed to find a buried power junction box between house and pool light. After digging several “well it ought to be right here holes” I ordered this device. I isolated the location, and found it in 3 minutes. Incredible and so easy to use. I will have several uses for this device. Thank you for a great product.

One star for now... works great for finding buried wire, as for finding a break its worthless. Before buying this I would scrap off insulation at various points and do a continuity test. Worked but kind of tedious. I have emailed the company five times, left messages with the provided phone # trying to get an answer as to by not re-insulating the wire if this could be why finding a break does not work. I never get a reply. Is their anybody that has a answer? I've even tried contacting competitive companies, they always want an order number.

Overall, this wire locator actually didn’t work pretty well after I ran out and not working 9 V batteries. I’d rather than just charge a lower amount and not include non working batteries. I’ve seen this function. Multiple different ways attaching them to the main breaker. All I did was actually clip both hot and ground to the wire and I didn’t even cut the insulation. As you can see in the video, when hovering above the wire, the indicator noise made a much higher pitch sound. I’ll update my review if I end up hitting a wire once I start digging! I hope this review and photos are helpful.

Works but does not work with jacketed wiring. Signal strength is either too weak or too strong. Didn’t come with batteries. If it worked like I needed it to it’d be great value for the price. Plastic. It’ll detect where the cable is but in jacketed romex wire it transfers the signal to the other wires inside. It’s pretty accurate finding the wire if that’s what you’re after.

Ok folks, this thing does work pretty well. Some key points to find a sprinkler valve, it took me a bit and my neighbor came over and helped and once we figured out the main points, found the valve relatively quickly. 1) make sure you hook up the ground. The instructions say to drip something in the ground and hook to that, in my case I just hooked it to a ground in the sprinkler control box and that worked fine. 2) unhook the wire to the sprinkler controller and hook the red clip. 3) "turn on" the sound on the transmitter. At first I didn't realize this was the procedure because when you turn it on the lights flash on the transmitter and it gets pretty loud. 4) there are no lights on the receiver, that is just a sticker.... 5) You don't need the earbuds unless it is really loud around. 6) drag the sensor on the ground "across" the wire you are hunting for. Listen for when the sound starts, peaks and ends. The middle should be roughly where the wire is located. Then move a few feet in the direction you think the wire is going and repeat. Keep doing this until you find the end of the wire. 7) with distance from the transmitter, and with distance from the wire, the strength does decline. You have to learn to interpret this. 8) My wiring was about 12" below the ground, and this thing had no issue picking it up. Bottom line: it does work, but it will take some time and some interpretation to find the valve.

Bought this based on the fact that it was the least expensive with the best customer reviews. Our invisible fence started beeping at the control box which meant the fence wasnt working. We have a very large back yard (about 1.5 acres) with invisible fence wire buried along the perimeter. I knew there had to be a break somewhere. Instructions that came with scanner were ok but I used youtube videos to figure out how to use it. Connected clips to the two wires at the control panel, powered it on, powred on the scanner and started walking the perimeter of the yard. THe scanner did its job and was making the tone noise when the pendulum would swing over the fence. When the tone started to get weak, I knew I was getting close, then it would just stop although I knew I was right over where the line was. Problem was, it didnt start toning again until about 150ft or so away from where it stopped. I started to backtrack from this point and as soon as the scanner dropped its tone I found a trench that some rodent had dug and sure enough, there was my break - they chewed through the wire to make their trench. I repaired this and tried the fence again - still getting beeping noise which meant there was still another break somewhere, So I hooked the scanner back up and went to where I originally lost the signal. This time when I lost the signal, it came back after a few feet which allowed me to narrow down the area where the 2nd break was. Looks like I might have done this one myself digging up saplings that were growing so I could replant them elsewhere. Anyway, after fixing the second break everything is working as normal. Would have taken me forever to find these breaks if I didnt have the scanner - money well spent.

This generally works OK. It is finicky, but will work. The problem is the earpiece it comes with is probably the worst earpiece I have ever seen or had the displeasure to try and use. Hard plastic that doesn’t stay in your ear, thin garbage cable, and a 2.5mm (?) connector, so you can’t even use a normal pair of headphones you might have on hand. In fact, it is hard to even find anything better as a replacement. On top of that, there is no speaker, so you are forced to use these garbage earpieces. This is the third time I have used this device and am ready to throw it in the trash and buy a different brand that doesn’t hate their customers so much. Strong recommendation to get something else besides this product.

I have a Husqvarna automower with boundary and homing wires. Disconnection at the charging station and at the homing wire remote connection point and use of a multimeter showed one section of the boundary wire was fine, and the other two sections both had breaks and earth leakage. In both cases the audio output of the detector dropped off significantly around 1.5metres short of the actual break which must have been because of the effect of the earth leakage. Regardless, the detector did what It’s designed to do and the breaks easily found. The breaks were fixed and the mower is mowing again.