Triplett Fox & Hound HotWire – PN: 3388 - Manual (Page 8)

Page 7
There are many different types of wire tracers using different technologies to trace wires. While a single
technology can be used to trace wires in many different scenarios, there is often a specific technology that
works best for a specific scenario.
While this instruction manual provides information on how to use the Triplett HotWire to perform various
wire tracing tasks, the user should be aware that in some cases, other testing devices may work better
than the HotWire. The principle use for which the HotWire is designed is, as its name implies, to locate
or trace a specific ‘hot’ or ‘live’ electrical wire. For this purpose, the HotWire works as well as, and often
better than, other products that use a similar technology.
Other Triplett Products
The HotWire can be used to identify Circuit Breakers attached to a particular wall outlet. However, the
Triplett Breaker Sniff-It usually works better for this application than the HotWire. The HotWire often
has difficulty identifying a specific circuit breaker, because the tracer signal used by the HotWire is often
distorted by the metal in the breaker panel, and the tracer signal crosstalks (more on this later) into other
breakers in the panel. The Breaker Sniff-It uses a different technology that usually positively identifies
the correct circuit breaker. The drawback to the Breaker Sniff-It is that it only works on ‘live’ circuits.
Additionally, the Breaker Sniff-It will not trace the path of the wire between the wall outlet and the circuit
breaker. The HotWire will work on ‘dead’ circuits (depending on why they’re dead) as well as ‘live’ circuits,
and it will trace the path of the wire.
The HotWire does not work well for identifying a specific wire in a bundle of wires. This is due to crosstalk
(more on this later). The standard Triplett Fox and Hound products (Fox, Fox 2, Fox Jr, Hound, Hound
2, Hound 3, and Hound Jr) use a different technology (AF) than the HotWire (RF). AF works better for
identifying specific wires in a group of wires. The HotWire Fox does have an AF feature built into it, but
the HotWire Hound does not work with AF. Most of the HotWire’s circuits are used to support its RF fea-
tures. AF was included in the HotWire Fox because is was easy to implement, and added some additional
flexibility to the product….. but AF does not work on live circuits. To use the HotWire Fox’s AF feature, a
standard Hound, Hound 2, Hound 3, or Hound Jr must be used.
The HotWire can be used to trace the path of a live AC power wire. In cases where there are numerous
hidden wires, the HotWire is a good choice for this task. However, when there are only a few AC power
wires in the vicinity, a possible alternative to the HotWire is the Triplett Sniff-It 2. The Sniff-It 2 can trace
live wires through walls and ceilings. It cannot identify a specific live wire. It just detects any live wire. In
some cases, this is enough to satisfy a particular user’s needs.
6: General Characteristics