Extension Cord Testing

Plug a lamp into the cord and the non-contact tester will light on the open neutral conductor. You'll have to start at the triple connector end and go back toward the plug end. You could use a jumper and power just the neutral with voltage and trace along the cord until it stops.
 
Try sticking a small diameter sewing needle into the cord. Your aim will need to be intuitive. But I think you will hit the selected wire especially when near the cord ends. Then check for ohms. Your problem is more than likely at or near the ends so you can guesstimate where the wires are within the cord…Good Luck, Dave.
 
Jim, already tried just powering the neutral, and I am guessing the inductive coupling in the cord is acting like a transformer in a way, because even the hot sniffs current when I do that. I need a less sensitive sniffer. Maybe using a signal generator I can find a frequency that doesn't couple and use my frequency counter with a pickup loop where I can control sensitivity by moving a bit away from the cord.

I never thought about having to do this, now I am becoming obsessed with how to lol......must be the OCD in me coming out.


And no, I'm not going to make a pincushion out of a good cord (well, hope to make it a good cord) The way I use mine, it's liable to be laying in puddles and who knows, so I can't risk violating the integrity of the jacket.
 
Do you have a variac transformer? You could turn the voltage down. Some of the tracers go down to about 50 volts. Also ground the conductors you aren't using to drain the induced voltage away.
 
Jim, I have several Variacs as well as a Tenma isolation transformer (variable voltage) on the bench. I hadn't thought of grounding the conductors not under test to eliminate the induced current, that should help. I don't have one of the low voltage sniffers. I know they make then for <50 VAC or so. Mine is the regular line voltage rated one.
 
Tony Wells said:
Jim, I have several Variacs as well as a Tenma isolation transformer (variable voltage) on the bench. I hadn't thought of grounding the conductors not under test to eliminate the induced current, that should help. I don't have one of the low voltage sniffers. I know they make then for <50 VAC or so. Mine is the regular line voltage rated one.
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Also ground the far end of the defective conductor. Just short all three conductors together at the far end.
 
Bet it's the triple tap on the female end, I've had a couple go bad just from dropping them.
 
Some time ago, I used thousand foot spools of Belden three conductor cable. I had a length that had an open conductor fresh off the spool.

We had an electric fencer running in the back yard and I connected one end of the bad conductor to the fencer and the other end to ground. I then worked my way down the cable listening for the spark jumping the gap. I was able to locate the break and on opening the cable up , discovered that it was a factory splice, hand twisted with a bit of insulating wrap around the splice. Apparently pulling on the cable had stretched it enough to separate the wires.
 
with a jumper wire liven one wire at a time and check with non contact tester
 
RJ, you may be onto something. I can short all three conductors together on one end and grab an old power transformer from some of my old tube gear and use the plate voltage to arc this open spot. Wherever it is, I don't care if it burns the jacket, it's getting cut there anyway.

Toolmaster, we have discussed that option and having tried it, it doesn't help. But we have brought up some variations that may. So I will have a few different things to try when I drag it back out.
 
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