This is a Huge Time Saver ⚡️

Added: 2026-05-09

[00:00:00]I want to show you guys a great way that I figured out how to save time when tracing out circuits. Once I started using the Ideal SureTrace Circuit Tracer Kit as my main circuit tracer as an electrician. So, of course, whenever you're tracing out a circuit, it's because you don't know what circuit breaker feeds to the device or circuit that you want to do work on. And further, if there's multiple panels that could potentially have that circuit breaker in it, you may not even know which panel you need to go to in the first place to start tracing. And of course, not to mention if there's multiple electric rooms that also have banks of panels, it could be time-consuming to figure out which panel has that breaker in it because you would have to go individually with a typical circuit tracer and scan every single breaker top to bottom until you eventually found the hit.

[00:00:42]Now, check this out. So, I have my transmitter plugged into this receptacle that I want to trace out. Tells me I have 120 volts. That's great. We're going to turn on our receiver.

[00:00:53]And from experience, I know I'm going to turn my sensitivity down to I'm getting a hit. So, this is putting out a signal.

[00:01:01]Now, this is where the magic happens.

[00:01:03]So, I'm going to start scanning these panels from left to right holding this vertically and see if we get any hits.

[00:01:09]Nothing on that first one.

[00:01:11]Nothing on the second one.

[00:01:13]We're getting a hit on this.

[00:01:16]Also getting a hit here.

[00:01:19]Nothing here.

[00:01:21]Nothing here.

[00:01:23]And nothing here. So, that makes sense that I would get a hit on both of these because it's essentially a section one and section two. But you guys, just like that, I eliminated one, two, three, four, five out of seven panels just by quickly doing that. Now, I'm going to turn my sensitivity all the way down at this point and we'll start scanning from top to bottom and see if we can find our circuit breaker.

[00:01:51]Oop.

[00:01:53]Okay, we're getting a 99 on this one.

[00:01:56]99 on this.

[00:01:58]99 on that.

[00:02:01]Weak signal on that on 37, so we're just going to keep going.

[00:02:04]So, the SureTrace technology is cool because it tells you the strength of the signal, okay? A lot of times you get false alarms with circuit tracers. This one, sure it might beep, but if you see a weak signal, you know it's probably not your circuit.

[00:02:15]So, I'm going to go back. Now, what you want to do with the circuit tracer is rock it at a 45° angle up and down, and you want to make sure that the signal stays the same cuz if it drops, then it's probably not your circuit. You see that the signal drops when I rock this on 31? So, 31's probably not our guy.

[00:02:33]45 up.

[00:02:34]45 down. So, 33 is looking promising. 35 up.

[00:02:39]And it drops.

[00:02:42]So, experience tells me that's typically the middle circuit breaker. When I do the rock test, 45 up, 45 down, the signal stays the same. Let's hit it.

[00:02:51]And just like that, looks like we found our circuit.

[00:02:57]You guys, this thing is awesome.