IDEAL Electrical 61-534 Digital Circuit Breaker Finder with Digital Receiver and GFCI Circuit Tester,Yellow

I read the reviews on this device and several others before buying this for 3 reasons:1: The unit was made by Ideal, and I have used Ideal Products for decades without fail. I expect no less from this too.2: The price was higher than some, but again, being an Ideal, I figured that the extra was money well spent.3: The functions described would do exactly what I needed to do if it works as promised: if it did, the price was worth it.I received it today and put it right to work for a test. Back, up in a 2 story home, I plugged in the power signal module, and went to the panel some 40 - 50 feet away.On my first try, it seemed to misfire, but upon careful test and retest, I found it to lock into the correct signal strength setting and breaker automatically as it is supposed to do. NOTE: It has NO manual function other than on and off switch, that's it. So, you MUST be willing to experiment with it a tad bit to learn how it works. Example: I have a main and sub panel nearly side by side in this location. The first testing run I went to the main panel 1st to find the signal, even though I knew that this circuit breaker was located in the sub-panel. It gave several false positives at first. Then, I went to the sub-panel and on first pass over the breakers it sounded off two or three times. But then, as I came up the breaker row the opposite direction, it locked onto the one single breaker and would not false positive on any others from then on. (That was the one correct single breaker.) I even took it back to the main panel where I began with the 2 or 3 false positives and it would not respond incorrectly. It merely requires the operator to give it a short bit of of time and exposure to lock in on the correct signal strength required to select the one single breaker out of them all. Do note: It did not false positive across the panel mains bar to the one opposite when auto-adjust was done either: it remained on target from then on out until I turned it off. Once I had turned it off, it was then reset to max sensitivity internally (automatically) and must be given the same steps over to remove the over-sensitivity and settle in on the right setting. It is just that easy to use!You can spend a LOT more money on these type of units, but this one from Ideal is excellent for the money. (I sure wish I had bought one of these about 15 years ago! ;-) It is well made, no frills, no carry case, and easy as pie to use. It also has a 2 year warrantee so you know that Ideal has a LOT of confidence in their well made product and it's construction, even though it is another China made product. Buy with confidence and enjoy. GaryPS: I bought a low cost Klein Tools case for it # 68401 and it is a just fits perfect scenario for use without a lot of extra room or sloppiness. ($7.99 from Amazon.) Enjoy! gli

I was at at a friend's house trying to ID the breaker that powered an outlet in a bedroom. When I plugged in the transmitter the UPS in the room started beeping as if the room had lost power. I tried to turn on a light plugged into a different outlet to see if I had just lost power to the whole room. The light did not come on so I went out to the panel in the garage and saw that one of the AFCI breakers was in the tripped (center) position. So I turned it off then on again and it tripped immediately. I went back into the bedroom to remove the transmitter then went out to reset the AFCI circuit breaker. The breaker reset. So in summary this Ideal 61-534 Digital Circuit Breaker Finder will trip AFCI circuit breakers. These type of circuit breakers are required in bedrooms according to the 2011 NEC Art 210.12 "Arc-Fault Circuit-Interrupter Protection.I do not like this because AFCIs are going to be in all newer homes I think it's even in the 2008 NEC so any home with a bedroom built since 2008 will have an AFCI circuit breaker. The fact that this device trips those breakers is very inconvenient. If someone has something in the bedroom such as a computer that can't be turned off and I plug in this device *BOOM* there goes any unsaved work on that computer.This is not good. But on the flip side I do really like this device. I have had other devices that would ID the CB to within 2 CBs. Well that's not good. So I heard good things about this one and bought it. I am happy with it. It has found every breaker correctly on the first pass. I can't give it 5 starts since it trips AFCI circuit breakers.

This is a great product but now the price has jumped from when I bought it - still better than the low cost ones. People need to understand that the automatic feature on this requires an initial scan and may detect a number of breakers but one needs to repeat the pattern which will reduce the sensitivity on second pass and I have always gotten one correct beaker on 2nd pass. That being said, I could see certain issues when plugging transmitter in to high quality surge/noise protectors or a ups which could theoretically block the signal, but that would affect even the most expensive ones. Each time you power the receiver off/on again it resets and you need to repeat the procedure.I just recently had a problem within warranty and phone service was outstanding and the company backs the product 100% I would buy again, I am too poor to buy throwaway products...

My house was built in 2005 but, alas, the previous owner had no architectural or construction drawings, so when I started contemplating the addition of a disposal in the kitchen sink and a few new outlets around the house, I had no way to gauge the magnitude of the project or if I had enough excess capacity in my existing breakers to handle the incremental load.I looked around on Amazon for an easy-to-use and reliable breaker finder and this one seemed to have the base reviews in my price range (around $80).I was able to map out about 30 outlets and light fixtures in around 1.5 hours. Bare in mind a lot of that time is walking back and forth from the breaker box to the outlets, so if you can enlist someone to help you it will go a lot faster. The unit worked accurately the first time right out of the box and I never had any false positives (the unit telling you that two different breakers are passing power to the same circuit).At the end of the process I had a map of all of the outlets, lights, and appliances connected to each breaker. My electrician told me that the map saved him an extra trip to my house and about an hour of work, so buying this unit saved me a couple hundred dollars (net of what I spent on the unit itself). Not bad, and I'll continue to save on future projects as well.