Went from a cheap toner to a dedicated circuit tracer, never looking back
Spent 3 years fighting with a $25 toner that couldn't pick up anything past a drywall patch, finally dropped $180 on a proper tracer from Grainger last Tuesday. It found a buried line in a warehouse slab that the cheap one had missed twice before. Anyone else made the jump and felt stupid for waiting?
Man, $180 to find a wire in a slab? I've been running the same $30 toner for like 6 years and yeah it gets confused near metal studs and sometimes I have to wiggle the wand around a bit. But for 99% of what I do it beeps when it should and stays quiet when it shouldn't. A buried line in a warehouse slab sounds like the one job a year where the fancy one earns its keep. Rest of the time you just paid six times as much to hear the same beep.