Customer Reviews

Fluke PRO3000 Tone and Probe Kit

5 star:		(23)
4 star:		(12)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

The Fluke 3000 is a great tool. It's designed use is for the computer and telecommunications fields. But it works great to find wires in walls too.
Ever wonder where that sneaky electrician ran a wire? Turn the circuit off, this tool isn't made to work at 120vac, then connect the transmitter to the wires. As long as the wires are not shorted together (like a light switch turned on, or something plugged in) you will find the wire easily. To make sure you have the correct wires, simply touch them together briefly, and the tone will change, verifying that you have the correct pair.

Works great through lath and plaster walls for pinpoint wire location.

I use this product in an industrial environment to trace control circuits of machinery and equipment, most of which does not have a circuit print or circuit log. It is an invaluable aid for this purpose. The advantage it gives, over conventional continuity testers, is: 1) the ability to trace a circuit through one of several conduits so I don't end up opening 10 different junction boxes to find out if the circuit I'm looking for is in here. 2) I can trace circuits without assistance, and usually faster than using conventional methods with two people. 3) I was able to locate a severed conductor inside the conduit run. The only disadvantage I have found with this tool; it gets lonley in the tool box and goes looking for human attention, therefore when I go to get it I have to search and usually find it in the hands of one of the other five technicians in our facility.

I've used several network cabling sniffers over the years. The Fluke unit is by far more sensetive and capable than others I've used. It is fast and easy to use. Uses standard batteries - no need to look for special hearing aid type batteries, simple 9 Volt batteries. having used others in the past, this one struck me with its sensitivity, able to locate wires in wall cavities, seperate leads from with in pairs easily.

This product will make my life much easier. I built a large house in Tahoe several years back, and there are many (about 30) CAT 5 / Coax home runs throughout the house that terminate at patch panels in the basement. Trouble is that some were poorly labeled (some have question marks), and some don't work. This tool is very sensitive (gives a tone when you are near the correct wire), and lets me diagnose / fix the problems without the frustration. No doubt, Fluke builds good stuff, and this device is fairly priced. Also bought the Fluke A/C probe that's very nice for about $25.

Great price, high quality and extra functionality.
I am quite impressed with this piece of equipment. As a standard tone & probe, it works just as it should.
However, what sets this kit apart are the additional continuity and polarity check functions. They save time and wear and tear on my DMM.
I also appreciate the multi-function alligator clips.
As always Amazon's free shipping and quick turn-around just added to the experience.

I participate on a Regional Building Committee for Sound System installations and this tool was recommended to me by one of our Senior Regional staff. It has worked perfectly. An example, we had a speaker can installed in the ceiling prior to drywall being installed. The Drywall staff covered over the speaker can and the paint crew then did their job. I came into the room and was able to trace the wire and find the speaker can in the ceiling in the matter of two minutes (literally)! I have used for several other instances and it has proved to be invaluable.

If you looking for an inexpensive tool to find a wire behind a wall this is the tool. By sending a tone through the wire it is possible to trace the wire through walls without opening the wall. Of course it is also great for finding wires within bundles. I purchased this to replace another probe that could not detect wires within the walls. The only reason I did not give this a 5 was that at the highest volumes I found the internal speaker to be noisy. It would be nice if there was a noise damping circuit on it so when no tone is detected it is quite.

I have never used another tone and probe kit but I have read reviews of other brands and many say they aren't sensitive enough to work behind walls. I think this one would work fine behind walls because it can sense from more than 1'-1.5' away from the wire. It also has a neat feature that if you short the wire your are connected to it will change the pattern of the tone letting you know for sure you have the correct wire. However this device falls short in two areas.

1) Build quality: like another review stated the volume thumb wheel knob has little raised spots so you can get some friction with the your thumb to increase the volume. This is great...however the body of the device is a bit small and when the raised areas on the knob try to go past the body of the probe, it hangs and you have to push really hard to get it to snap past it. I will need to take the probe apart and file off a bit of the body for more clearance.

2) Connectors: This device only has the bare wire clips and an old telephone RJ11. No RJ45, no coax, or any other type of connection. Another brand I almost purchased that is twenty five dollars less came with RJ45, RJ11, Coax, bare wire clips, and even fuse blade type ends so that you can plug in to a fuse box on an automobile. So of you want to connect to an ethernet receptacle on the wall you would have to cut an ethernet cable and pull out the bare wires to clip to. Also the same for Coax.

So this device is twenty five dollars more and I am going to have to make special cables for testing coax, rj45, and automobile fuse box....and I will have to disassemble the probe to fix the volume knob. If I knew the other device was a sensitive as this one then I would just send this back and get the Sperry ET64220. Also, the Sperry has audible and visual indication. This fluke only has audible.

This helped me find several wires that got sheetrocked over and saved a lot of time and work. No more cut out sheetrock to patch.

This probe is a huge improvement and has helped with diagnosing my network troubles. It is straight forward and easy to use. No messy connections. As long as you have two 9vbatteries you can use this straight out of the box.