Bought a $200 toner and probe kit that was junk

Last month I dropped $200 on one of those fancy toner and probe kits from a brand I never heard of. The probe kept losing signal every time I walked past a fluorescent light in this office building downtown. I spent like 3 hours chasing a dead circuit that turned out to be in the ceiling and the thing just couldn't pick it up. Anybody else get burned by a cheap tester that looked good online?

3 comments

3 Comments

alext524d ago

That bit about the fluorescent lights killing the signal... yeah I had the same problem with a kit I bought off Amazon a couple years back. Couldn't even trace a basic Cat5e run through a drop ceiling without the thing going haywire every time I passed a ballast. Ended up returning it and got a Fluke kit from a pawn shop for about the same money. That thing worked fine even in an old building with those buzzing tube lights everywhere. Sometimes the cheap stuff just can't handle real world interference.

david_walker974d ago

I used to think paying more for test gear was just paying for a brand name, but after fighting with cheap tone generators in an old office building for a week straight I completely changed my mind. That pawn shop score was legit luck.

shane_morgan4d ago

Cheap stuff just can't handle real world interference" - that's basically the story of my whole life right there. It's not just networking gear either, it's everything now. I bought a cheap blender last year that rattles itself apart if you try to crush ice, but the old Oster from the 80s my grandma had could probably blend rocks. Manufacturers figured out most people just want the lowest price tag, so they make stuff that works fine in perfect conditions but falls apart the second you actually need it to do something real. That Fluke find at a pawn shop sounds like a steal, those things are built different and last forever if you don't lose them.