Bought a $200 cable toner that lied to me every time

Picked up one of those fancy Fluke toners last month thinking it would save me hours tracing lines in a new build in Denver. Turns out it kept picking up phantom signals from nearby live wires, sent me chasing the wrong coax for 3 hours straight. Anybody else had a toner that just flat out fibbed on you?

3 comments

3 Comments

emma_rodriguez307d ago

@anthony763 could probably chase a ghost tone faster than that Fluke after a few coffees. Had a cheap toner from Harbor Freight once that insisted a dead cable was live, ended up cutting into a live line and smoking my whole tester.

anthony7637d ago

Three hours chasing the wrong coax because of phantom signals? That's brutal man, I'd have launched that thing into the drywall.

williamw757d ago

...and I'm sitting here wondering if three hours is really that bad. I've had a toner that was off by a few feet on a 50-pair cable and still called it a win because at least it pointed me in the right building. Sounds like your Fluke was garbage, sure, but maybe the problem is more about trusting a $200 gadget to do the thinking for you instead of just using your ears and a little logic. I've seen guys spend half a day chasing a bad tone only to find out the cable wasn't even terminated. So yeah, it sucks, but launch it into drywall? That's a bit dramatic for a Tuesday.