[1idejim]

Originally Posted by captken

Well, I went back today, yesterday was storming. I need to back up and do what Jim suggested to do to fix the signal gap in my wire trace.
What I did instead was watch over my crew doing the pipe repairs and tinkering a little with the 521a. I don't know about you, but for me, I have to concentrate and not be distracted while learning how to use the wire tracer....and having a couple guys to supervise....not that I don't trust them mind you, I just want to be sure the job gets done right the first time.

This is beyond where Jim and I talked about the wire siganl gap.

What I was able to do is take the bundle of wires, in full sunlight, look at them closely.

quote
[[8 strands 4 colors...2 black....2 green....2 yellow....2 red....wtf? ]]quote. was in the first post, and I was confused however...

In full sunlight, scraping the insulation deeply with my knife revealed not the above but, 1 black 1 grey 1 blue 1 green 1 yellow 1 white 1 red 1 orange.
I guess being in the ground for 25+ years took a toll on the paint pigment in the insulation.

Using white as the common, tried to get consistant ohm readings but they were all over the place.

I tried a combo of White and Blue, on the 521a and took me to a valve using White and Yellow.??
Whats up with that?

I went back and tried the combo of White and Yellow, it took me directly over a valve buried 2-1/2 that had White and Orange.

So I know that the common, is white at this leg which suggest that no one has done repairs since it was installed.

A puzzel indeed, but a very interesting puzzel.

This 521a is great tracing a wire over a long distance. I need to hone my skills locating valve and learn to trust the machine. I need get caught up on work that need to be done up to this point.

A job like this will teach you a lesson about yourself. What your weakness' are as well as your strengths.

You should practice as much as possible with your DMM before spring startups. I would say multimeter knowhow is the area most techs lack the most.
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