In article . net,
PipeDown wrote:

"Nick Hull" wrote in message
...
In article ,
"Walter R." wrote:

I want to identify a circuit breaker for a disconnected stove in my main
panel (looks like # 6 red and black wires). This is a large house and the
main panel is a maze of wires and breakers (200 A service).

How can I tell which breaker controls this particular circuit? Can I just
turn off the main switch, short-circuit the wires, and turn the main on
again? Will this damage the Main breaker?

Thanks for your help

I wouldn't short circuit anything. You could plug a light bulb in to
check the circuit, 2 bulbs for 220.

Easier is to go to Radio shack or Home Depot and buy a circuit tracer.
Plug the transmitter module into the circuit and the reciever will show
you which wire and which breaker correspond.

--
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Cheaper than a signal tracer is a multimeter. simply set its dial for AC
volts and toutch the wires to measure the voltage. Turn off a breaker and
see if the voltage went to 0V. If it did, you turned off the right one.

Alternatively to a voltmeter, there are non contact voltage probes (probably
also at RS but many other places too) and you just wave it near a wire and
if it buzzes the wire is live.

Both the probe or the meter can be bought for less than $20 and sometimes
much less.

(Because it's been a month since this post was posted, I "quote"
the whole history that *this* post had.)


But that scheme requires that you sequentually, randomly, or with some
good guessing, do this for each circuit-breaker, ie turn if off, do
test, then turn back on --

you must first turn off all computers and similar devices, else you
can blow the hard-disks, especially those that were being written-to
when you switched off "its" breaker.


The prior-prior post's suggestion of the (more expensive) RS 2-part
device sure sounds simple, even foolproof!

Having never seen such a device, please tell me, is that true?

What's the downside of that clever-sounding device?

(Before I go off and *buy* one!)

David