Spent $600 on a fancy circuit tracer and it was a total waste

I bought the ProTech 9000 last year thinking it would save hours chasing wires in tight panels. Used it twice on a Citation X at our hangar in Dallas. The signal bled everywhere, giving false readings on parallel runs. Ended up doing the old continuity check with my Fluke anyway. Anyone have a tracer that actually works on shielded bundles?

2 comments

2 Comments

patricia_lee11d ago

Had the same problem with shielded bundles on a G650. The ProTech just can't handle the capacitance. I keep a basic tone generator from Ideal in my bag for this. Hook it up, use the inductive probe, and follow the tone. It's slow but it doesn't bleed. You still need to verify with a meter, but it gets you to the right general area.

dixon.felix11d ago

My buddy Mike was tracing a ground fault in a Challenger 300's main avionics bay. His fancy tracer was just lighting up the whole bundle like a Christmas tree. He dug out this old, beat-up toner from his first apprentice kit. Took him an hour of careful listening with the probe, but he tracked it down to a single pin backshell that had gotten crushed. Sometimes the old ways just WORK.