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Creating a DIY Cable Tracker: A Step-by-Step Guide

Have you ever wondered how to create a simple cable tracker using basic electronics? In this article, we'll guide you through the process of building a working cable tracker using a minimalistic approach.

We start by assuming that the last inverter output is low, which means the first output gets pulled high. This pull high action creates a cycle where the next output gets pulled low, and the last one gets pulled high again. As this cycle repeats over and over, it creates a square wave whose on and off times are dependent on the turn-on/off times of the IC and also by the type of resistors and capacitors used in the circuit.

For our DIY cable tracker, we'll be using a Schmitt trigger hex inverter IC along with one 1uF capacitor and one 50k potentiometer. After connecting the parts to each other on a breadboard according to this minimalistic schematic, we can hook up 5V power and have a look at the output on the oscilloscope.

As you can see, it creates a square wave signal whose frequency we can fine-tune with the potentiometer. If you're interested in how such a relaxation oscillator functions, make sure to watch my basics video about Schmitt triggers.

To hear the sent-out waveforms without any problems, bring the turned-on receiver close to the output of the circuit. Although we don't have a changing tone, the frequency of around 3 kHz is much more noticeable and annoying than any changing sound. This means that our DIY sender is done and works!

It's time to open up the receiver and take a closer look at it as well. Once again, the circuit traces were clearly visible, and it seems like the only IC used is an LM386 audio power amplifier.

Simplified speaking, the received signal through the antenna controls the gate of a transistor which pre-amplifies the received signal. This signal is then fed into the audio amplifier whose amplifies the signal and connects it to speaker for playback.

Our circuit is already pretty minimalistic but I wanted to go with even less components for my DIY circuit. It basically does the same thing as the buy receiver circuit by firstly pre-amplifying the antenna signal and then amplifying it again through the help of an opamp which plays back the received tone through headphones.

To power up our piece of art, we need 9V. As soon as my piece of art was complete, I powered it up with 9V and as you can hear this circuit seems to work just fine as well. However, next time I should probably use a more powerful OpAmp to get a louder tone output.

In conclusion, our DIY cable tracker was completed but I didn't bother creating proper housings for it because I think that for the price of just 13$, the Buy version is really worth its price tag and you should for the most part stick with it. However, if you want to go super cheap or need a cable tracker in just 15 minutes then DIY is definitely the way to go which is why for me both DIY and Buy are this time the winner.

But what do you think? Let me know your thoughts in the comment section below. As always, thanks for watching. Don't forget to like, share, subscribe, and hit the notification bell. Stay creative and I will see you next time.

WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enLet’s imagine you just moved into your new place and you just started drilling holes  into your walls in order to hang up your important pictures or something similar. Everything is going according to plan but before drilling the last hole you realize something. This hole lies right between an outlet and your home distribution box so in theory  there is a possibility that a wire is running through the wall there. So by simply drilling you can create a short circuit and damage your house wiring permanently. Thankfully though I live in Germany and we have standards on where the  wires should be positioned inside a wall so I can drill without any worries but  that is of course not the case for all countries in the world. A solution to this problem could be such a cable tracker which I got from EBay for pretty cheap. To use it I firstly have to turn off the mains power with the help of the matching fuse. Then I can push a plug into the outlet whose L and PE wire I hook up to the cable tracker  whose power switch I flip on to the tone mode.Last but not least I need to hold the cable  tracker receiver push button in order to activate it and as you can see and hear  whenever I come close to the wires in the wall the received tone of the cable tracker becomes louder. Of course it is not 100% precise but this way you can still pretty easily track the  wires in your wall which is not only useful when hanging pictures but also  when you got a fault in your wiring and you need to find out where it is located. I personally think this product is pretty handy to have around which is why in  this episode of DIY or Buy I will not only reverse engineer the circuits of this tool  and explain how they work but I will also show you how to create a super crude DIY version that  you can make within 15 minutes and at the end I will decide which version I recommend you to use. Let’s get started! This video is sponsored by JLCPCB! Feel free to visit their website JLCPCB.com  to not only find out what awesome PCB and Assembly services they offer but  also to easily upload your Gerber files and thus order affordable and high quality PCBs quickly. Firstly let’s talk about the general functional principle of this tool. By hooking up the sender to a pair of wires it basically sends a special voltage waveform  through them and thus turns them into antennas which broadcast this waveform through the air. Now the receiver uses its own antenna to pick this waveform up and plays it back on a small speaker. Of course the closer you get to the wires the more the receiver will pick up and just like  that you should now understand the simplified functional principle of this cable tracker. To dig deeper though we can firstly hook up the sender to the oscilloscope  to see the waveform for ourselves.As you can see it resembles a square wave  but with big voltage peaks at the edges and its frequency also seem to vary over time between  values of around 1 kHz to 1.14 kHz which explains the changing tone the receiver plays back. But of course to build a DIY version of such a sender we should probably understand how the  circuit works for which I opened up its housing.I was not only rather surprised how simple it  was to take everything apart but also that the circuit traces were easy to see and the  name of the IC was not removed which basically means this should be easy to reverse engineer. So I firstly googled the name of the IC in order to not only find out that it is a Hex Inverter IC  but also that it comes with this pinout.Next I followed the traces leading from  and to the IC in order to create a crude schematic of what we are working with. At some point I also had to use my multimeter with its continuity function  but overall like previously stated this circuit was pretty straightforward  to reverse engineer but that does not mean that the circuit itself is easy to understand  which you might agree with while looking at this finalized schematic. The first thing that came to my mind while seeing this was a ring oscillator. To create one you have to put an odd number of inverter stages in series  with the last one feeding back into the first which creates a square wave on the output. The reason why this works is pretty simple to explain. Let’s imagine the last inverter output is low which means the first output gets pulled high  and thus the next one gets pulled low and the last one therefore pulled high  which makes the first one gets pulled low.This cycle repeats over and over again,  creating a square wave whose on and off time is dependent on the turn on/off times of the IC  and also by what kind of resistors and capacitors you add to the mix. Now the sender circuit seems to be a special kind of ring oscillator  that features a changing frequency but for my own crude DIY solution  we can build something way simpler.All we need is such a Schmitt trigger  hex inverter IC along with one 1uF capacitor and one 50k potentiometer. After connecting the parts to one another on a breadboard according to this minimalistic  schematic, we can hook up 5V power and have a look at the output on the oscilloscope. As you can see it creates a square wave signal whose frequency we  can fine tune with the potentiometer.And if you are now interested in how such  a relaxation oscillator functions then make sure to watch my basics video about Schmitt triggers. But anyway by bringing the turned on receiver close to the output  of the circuit you can hear that it picks up the sent out waveforms without any problems. Of course we do not have the changing tone but I would say that the frequency of around 3 kHz  is much more noticeable and annoying than any changing sound. That means that the DIY sender is done and works  and thus it was time to open up the receiver and have a closer look at it as well. Once again the circuit traces were clearly visible and it seems like the only IC  used is an LM386 audio power amplifier.So once again time to reverse engineer the  circuit which this time was quicker to do and the end result was also easier to understand. Simplified speaking the received signal through the antenna controls the gate of a transistor  which pre amplifies the received signal as you can see here on the oscilloscope. This Signal is then fed into the audio amplifier whose which obviously amplifies the signal and  connects it to speaker for playback.I have to say that this circuit is  already pretty minimalistic but I wanted to go with even less components for my DIY circuit. It basically does the same thing as the buy receiver circuit  by firstly pre amplifying the antenna signal and then amplifying it again through the help  of an opamp which playbacks the received tone through headphones. So it was time to create the circuit for which I did not use the breadboard  due to existing parasitic capacitances but instead I soldered everything to one another in midair. As soon as my piece of art was complete, I powered it up with 9V and as you can hear  this circuit seem to work just fine as well.But next time I should probably use a more  powerful OpAmp to get a louder tone output.Anyway though with the testing being completed  my DIY cable tracker was complete but I really did not bother creating proper housings for it  because I think that for a price of just 13$, the Buy version is really worth its price tag  and you should for the most part stick with it.That does not mean that Buy is the winner though  because if you want to go super cheap or need a cable tracker in just 15 minutes  then DIY is definitely the way to go which is why for me both DIY and Buy are this time the winner. But what do you think; let me know your thoughts in the comment section below. As always thanks for watching.Don’t forget to like, share,  subscribe and hit the notification bell.Stay creative and I will see you next time.