NOYAFA nf-826 Underground Cable Locator, Wire Tracking Detector, Wall and Underground Pipeline Wire Detector. Fuse, Switch, Short Circuit Breaker Fault Finder/Rechargeable Underground Wire Detector

True and nothing more so if you're considering this, read the WHOLE review!I needed to label a mess of an electrical panel and sub panel that someone added to many times... to be most polite, they should never touch electrical again! Not even in their own house. Especially in their own house. (Ever see two triple-taps of 12 under a DP70A running to an outdoor breaker panel to underground 30A to a garage..?)Being the most, errr, "complicated" house I ever mapped, I finally bought a Klein ET450. I'd say it's pro, cheaper than an Ideal at around four times the price... but still about $250.I did the job, and it was still a nightmare; the Klein is accurate, mostly, when transmitting on a powered line AND grounded AND reading at the panel. Easy enough for receptacles. But, this is annoying when trying to locate a lighting circuit; who wants to run around the house unscrewing bulbs to hook up a transmitter adapter. And the signal seems to evaporate if not grounded. I thought I could use it to transmit at the panel into the line, even dead, then run around the house tracing the signal to the receptacles, switches etc that it fed. I understood that I could literally trace, say, NM cable through the walls! But no matter how I tried, I got sketchy results at best.(I'm assuming that the Ideal would do it at $1200..?)Enter the NOYAFA NF-826.I thought I'd try so I ordered it anyway.Yes "cheap chinese crap etc".In my opinion it blew away the Klein!I saw many reviews stating that it doesn't work, the instructions are stupid, buttons don't make sense yada yada.Maybe someone did get a bad unit; it happens, that's life.I agree the instructions are translated a few times and badly. The buttons/functions could be better, but I definitely understood how it functioned; I barely looked at the manual (more on that later!)Since I already finished the job with the ET450, I finally opened the Noyafa tonight to play with it; I was really planning to send it back but was curious.So I played with it... in my own house, that I personally wired, including a new panel and circuits throughout when I moved in, adding to old KT and recently adding a sub-panel and more new circuits... so I know where _everything is! Not only did it pick out breakers at the panel, but I _was able to reverse it as I'd hoped by injecting the signal at the panel and finding the receptacle upstairs... from a few feet away!Know this before you buy so you won't send it back saying "it doesn't work."Like many similar items including true pro level, there IS some signal cross-talk between conductors, circuits etc. Always. Seems worse on live circuits and parallel stuff like NM (Romex). That's why many people said things like "I plugged into an outlet and it (Noyafa) showed was several breakers; turned them off and the outlet was still on!" Well... I got that with the Klein sometimes!Here's the thing. You need to understand the tool.I could never affords the best (ideal?) so I don't know how it might handle this, but the Noyafa not only has 3 levels of transmitting strength but 8 levels of detection strength. There are also ways to mitigate cross-talk and similar problems. By setting high TX at the panel and starting high RX I was able to walk around my house with the receiver at waist height and spin around every few feet to hit the right receptacle! Errr, but I still got some signal at various nearby switches, other outlets etc. As I lowered the RX sensitivity and started to narrow it down, those 'false' signals vanished.Other similar tests showed I could read the hot wire in the Romex (open basement joists); literally, by adjusting the TX & RX levels, sometimes with the line dead at the breaker, I could move the tip of the receiver to each side of the NM sheath and _every _time get the signal on the one same edge ONLY. That is impressive!! I also traced the same line (I KNOW where it is in the basement ceiling stapled three inches down along the main joist) through the floor above!I don't know if the naysayers got bad units, don't understand how it works, or are not patient.It works. (Can't vouch for underground landscape wiring; didn't try. Don't see how would be any different than the tests I _did run; this thing is _strong and _sensitive.)Finally, the manual. Yes it's crap. But mostly OK English. When I finally read it, a few things jumped out at me that _really impressed:First, they pointed out a method (with diagrams) where (if you spring for a second transmitter) you can trace a break in a cable (they show through walls and that's the whole point of this thing primarily) by using a TX at each known end on a DIFFERENT channel..! Get this; as you trace the cable, the receiver will suddenly tell you that it's reading the other channel, and that's the break in the line! Yes, you can use up to 6 TX units each on a separate signal and the RX unit tell you... wow I wish I could afford five more - I could plug all six into a house's second floor, run to the panel, and identify six circuits at once, or see that several rooms are on the same! Or reverse that at the panel, on _live circuits, take a note pad through the house, and map dozens of lights, switches, outlets in one go!Oh yes... it's about a hundred LESS than the Klein.Not knocking the Klein, but, guys at Klein, you could learn a few things from Noyafa...

I was going to have an exterminator drill into the concrete in the back of my house, and knew there was a wire underneath I wanted to avoid damaging. I got this electrical wire detector and was able to see and mark where the wire was buried. It didn’t take too long to learn how to use it.

It works. Theres a learning curve, and still I don’t think it works right half the time but after trial and error it has been 90% accurate. I believe working conditions such as bad grounds and other interferences cause the 10% inaccuracy. I found my buried water well by tracing the power wires. Really handy on home remodeling and house wiring. I even traced a gas line with it!!

I cut some wires in a remodel that I was doing and lo and behold they weren’t supposed to be cut. Used this to locate the ones that needed to be reconnected to the power source and stripped out the remaining that were truly dead.

Easy to use easy to trace wires

Great tool it simply came used

I was an electronic control technician for a number of years. This thing would have saved my ass on numerous occasions. I've used it several times already and has been an invaluable tool at a farm we recently purchased. (Wire locates, shorts, and breaks.)It also works great for finding breaks inThere is an odd guy on youtube that did about a 20 min video on the thing. You'll want to watch that if you buy this. The directions aren't great and you need to change sensitivity depending on what you are using it for. It also works well to inject a signal over live power.For what it costs I'm impressed. *** Make sure you ground the black side.

Although the label on the box says this product is an Underground Cable Detector, the description in the ad, and even several of the examples in the user's manual, indicates this device can be used for wires in walls. So I brought the nf-826 to help located the break in an open ground circuit in my house. Bottom line, the detector was unable to do what it claimed it could do and contacting Noyafa for assistance proved fruitless. So I returned the nf-826 for a refund. You can read the details below in the emails communications between myself and Noyafa.-------------------------- Specific Details ---------------------------I sent the following email to both the Noyafa sales and service departments:"Using an electrical outlet tester, I discovered that one of the circuits in my house had an open ground. Further investigation isolated the break to be in the 14/2 Romex cable running from the service panel, up to and through the attic and down a wall to the first junction box in the circuit (about a 40 to 50 ft. run).I bought the NF-826 to isolate where in the Romex cable the break in the ground wire existed. I disconnected all three wires of the Romex cable at the service panel and also in the first junction box to make sure the power, neutral, and ground wires were de-energized and totally disconnected at both ends.Having a fully charged transmitter and receiver, following the instructions in section 3.5 of the NF-826’s manual and using the unconnected wires of the Romex cable in the junction box, I connected the NF-826’s red connector to the ground wire (the target wire). To the NF-826’s black connector, I connected the power (black) and neutral (white) lines of the Romex cable. I then also connected the NF-826’s black connector to the ground wire of a different circuit’s outlet’s ground plug to establish a valid ground for the NF-826. Note that I tested this exact configuration using a 15 ft. piece of spare 14/2 Romex cable on my garage floor and the NF-826 detected the break I introduced in the ground wire halfway down the cable. So I was hopeful the NF-826 would find the break in the ground wire of my open ground circuit with this setup.Unfortunately, following the Romex cable with the receiver from the junction box, up the wall, through the attic, and down to the service panel, the receiver was picking up solid signals throughout the entire run of the cable. I experimented with various transmitter and receiver signal strengths with little difference in the results.Unable to isolate where in the Romex cable the break in the ground wire was located, I ended up having to remove and replace the entire run of the cable. Later, I manually inspected the old Romex cable and found where the break was located…about 10 feet from the first junction box (about a foot into the attic).So my question is, why might I have been receiving a significant signal 30 to 40 feet past the break in the ground wire? I know there are many other energized lines running throughout the attic and certainly around the service panel. Is your product ineffective in such environments? Or did I not use the NF-826 properly?"Within a day, I received the following email from Noyafa's sales department (I never did hear from their service department):"Thanks for your trust on our product and description of your operation, to offer help, could you pls send us a video of the whole process?Looking forward to your kind reply"I immediately responded with another email:"Much appreciation for the quick reply. At this point, creating a video of the whole process would be impractical, if not impossible. The broken wire in question has been replaced and therefore I could not recreate and illustrate the issue I was having (i.e. the receiver continuing to indicate a significant signal 30 to 40 feet past the break in the wire). Plus, pulling apart the service panel and junction box again would now be most inconvenient, not to mention having to crawl around in my attic while trying to also hold a camera to film what I’m doing. I realize a video could be helpful, however I believe I gave in my original communique enough of a detailed explanation of my situation for you to offer some advice or feedback. Is there some additional information I could provide short of creating a video of the entire process?"I did not receive any further response from Noyafa.