Saw your video, bought one of these, and found my lost valve box in 5 minutes. I bought this home 4 years ago and hadn't found it or needed to find it until today when a valve was stuck open. Thanks for sharing!
I was only able to locate 9 of my 14 valves by visual inspection. So, I purchased the Harbor Freight Cable Tracker; it helped me find 1 more. I still can't find the other 4. They may be buried too deep or I may need better headphones to hear the faint tone. I also had the problem with the tracking signal bleeding over to other valves. To distinguish valves I turned on each zone/valve at the controller one at a time, then used a clamp on current meter to determine which valve had current flowing to it. Harbor Freight has such a meter for $14.99. You place the clamp around just one of the two wires going into the valve's solenoid. You could also use a voltmeter at each valve and look for 28 volts AC but you would have to tap into the wires; just be sure to seal them back up really well.
I bought the same one from Harbor Freight yesterday after viewing your video, but there is no tune sound detected at all after the wires going inot the ground. I think the signal is too weak. I just ordered F02 Pro from Ebay, hopefully it will work.
Nice video. I think you could put a long screwdriver or metal probe into the ground with a wire attached and then run that to the black alligator clip. That might help isolate the zones.
Ya the cable toner is decent but an actual valve locator takes you right 2 em. (I am an irrigator by trade) but normal people won't want 2 go speed $700 to $1200 for their own yard lol.
Thats why you should just hire a pro instead of buying cheap locators that wont do the job. Dont waste your time trying to do what the pro's can knock out in an hour.
The tool is $30 buck. Irrigation company quoted me $175 just to unpack the pro tool locate the lines. Not including labor or the actual repair. Habit freight tool is worth a try if you are handy.
I got one to find mine. I don’t even remotely know where to start. I lost all signal where the wire went into the ground. I tried grounding it to ground, power on/off. Hooked to multiple wires. Nothing.
same problem, there is on signal. Then I put black transmitter lead to a nail in the ground, then only tune I got is between the red wire to nail whic is 4 meters away. It seems that the signal will not go through the station wire.
Possibly, if you connect the ground wire like I showed at the end, to a stake in the ground, then it will likely trace up to the break point, helping you find the severed line. Just be careful digging, its often hard to tell the difference between roots and wires, use a spade and your hands.
Well, if you are using a wire tracing tool like I showed here then you trace the wires until they stop, that's where the valve will be, dig a few small holes until you find the valve or at least a pvc pipe. If you find a pipe then you can quickly see the direction of the pipe and follow that to the valve being very careful not to cut the wires (they can feel like roots sometimes so just use a hand spade). Once you find the valve, replace the solenoid; you can can find those at all the big box hardware stores.
Can't really say, but a foot, maybe 2 is all you're probably going to get. Enough for sprinkler systems that aren't too deep. This is southern Texas so we don't bury stuff too deep.
@@GX470PracticalMaintenance Came across your video this morning while looking for valve locators. I bought one at Harbor Freight a few hours ago and about to try to find a hidden valve. I live in South Texas near the coast and can vouch for irrigation not being too deep.
I'm sorry, I do not believe this video is legitimate. I used this HF tracker, and the signal is so weak that the sound of the sensor goes to zero within 6 inches away from the conductor. That was my baseline test, simply holding the sensor wand directly up to the wires the cable tracker transmitter was clipped on to. No length of cable or materials to attenuate the signal. Can't sense thru more than 6 inches of air? Not gonna find anything underground. The only useful application of this tool is for electrical projects, where you have multiple cable bundles exposed, and you're just trying to figure out which one is the one that connects to someplace in another room, without hooking up live AC power. In that case, where you have perfect access to all wiring, and just need to know which wire is which, it's useful. Absolutely not for sprinkler wire finding.
