Good cable detector

[nonkapo]

Good evening all,

Friend of mine, who's in to the home electric installation fitting busyness is asking me for recommendation. For finding the cables in the wall, the regular detector of the one we use might not work for several reasons. The machine he is using is home built and contains sort of transmitter connecting to the cable and receiver following the cable. Unfortunately after few years of use it malfunctions and he is looking for good alternative as the constructor of his home built one can not be traced for repair. I will try to show you photos of it but since is "flying assembly"(no pcb) it will be hard to trace either.
Please help if you have some experience in this field.
Thanks.

[ivconic]

Good evening all,

Friend of mine, who's in to the home electric installation fitting busyness is asking me for recommendation. For finding the cables in the wall, the regular detector of the one we use might not work for several reasons. The machine he is using is home built and contains sort of transmitter connecting to the cable and receiver following the cable. Unfortunately after few years of use it malfunctions and he is looking for good alternative as the constructor of his home built one can not be traced for repair. I will try to show you photos of it but since is "flying assembly"(no pcb) it will be hard to trace either.
Please help if you have some experience in this field.
Thanks.

Hopefully Gyorgy will not warn me on this, because really it has nothing to do with LRL, but the BEST EVER in wall cable locator, that i saw for the whole of my life so far : is my version of Zahori.
Cable, single wire, live or not; Zahori will kill it. Best ever.
But; instead of telescopic antenna; you should put small copper plate 2x2cm and mount it suitable for walls "scanning".
All the details are now on LRL part of the forum.

[ivconic]

2x2, 3x3, 4x4 even 5x5 cm copper plate. Larger the plate; larger the sensitivity and "scanning" area.
It simply kills when it comes to in wall cable/wire locating.
Many years ago i tried to make real working LRL and i failed (of course) , instead i made terrific cable/wire locator!
Real deal would be to make it SMD and pack in small package.
Don't know (don't believe) if those CA3130 can be obtained in SMD package, tough!
So it makes sense to look for any modern SMD replacement for those.
Both NE555 should be "regular" and NOT CMOS (NE555 and not 7555).

[sinclairuser]

the cheap 10 pounds copies of the Garrett wand make excellent cable locators, fat wire thin wire even coax finds them all.

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Portable-...item2ad1853aa7

i bought one of these a few years ago just to play around with, but now use it for finding cables.

[ivconic]

I have exactly the same one, cheap, from Aliexpress.
It is motion type detector Also very "shallow".
Not suitable for precise cable locating.
And comparing to earlier mentioned Zahori; it is no competition.
Hopefully George would not mind me to post here the schematic and pcb for Zahori.
This time aimed as indeed useful in wall cable/wire locator and not nonsense LRL.

[nonkapo]

Seems i do not push post button previous time... Thanks everyone. Ivconic i already check my supplier and they have only the CA3130 DIP version(altough the datasheet mention SOIC package), where the opto and the timer are available both dip and smd. Good that you warn me about the CMOS timer as that was what i plan to use;-). My eyesight is not any more suitable for SMD, so i dont think i'll go that way. Let me see if i'll manage to order the parts until my friend is vacation as here they are damn expensive and hard to find.

[nonkapo]

Uuups, wrong. Farnel have the SMD MZ verson in stock.

[Hyena]

I build this one http://www.diy-electronic-projects.c...-line-Detector

I believe it can not be more simple. Detects fluorescent lamp more than 50cm away and live wire even in plastic tubing, where commercial units failed.

Grounded water pipe near live wire lower detection distance, but I never missed yet. Also detect cable in plastic tubing, where commercial units failed...

[nonkapo]

Thanks Hyena, that's an one hour job. I will order the components for it together with the other.