Do any of these reliably work?
I just bought a Bosch DMF 10 (not cheap either!) with the hope of
locating studs beneath my plasterboard/tiled bathroom wall.
Bearing in mind that I have some idea where the studs are by measuring,
I cannot get the Bosch to give repeatable positions.
Sometimes I can get a trusted reading but vertically up or down from
this position, it cannot find anything to verify it as a stud.
On occasions it latches up bleeping slowly. This is not mentioned in the
manual so no idea what it means.
Its not the live wire detector as I know where the cables are and it
bleeps frantically when it finds one.

Andy.

On 2007-10-27 13:59:05 +0100, Andy Dee said:

Do any of these reliably work?
I just bought a Bosch DMF 10 (not cheap either!) with the hope of
locating studs beneath my plasterboard/tiled bathroom wall.
Bearing in mind that I have some idea where the studs are by measuring,
I cannot get the Bosch to give repeatable positions.
Sometimes I can get a trusted reading but vertically up or down from
this position, it cannot find anything to verify it as a stud.
On occasions it latches up bleeping slowly. This is not mentioned in
the manual so no idea what it means.
Its not the live wire detector as I know where the cables are and it
bleeps frantically when it finds one.

Andy.

Are you using it correctly? The usual way is to calibrate over a
blank area and then to move the detector horizontally until the studs
are found.

I have a Zircon detector (actually two different ones) and they work fine.

On Sat, 27 Oct 2007 14:23:53 +0100, Andy Hall
wrote:

I have a Zircon detector (actually two different ones) and they work fine.

Did you locate any zircon?

:-)
--
Frank Erskine

On 2007-10-27 15:05:19 +0100, Frank Erskine
said:

On Sat, 27 Oct 2007 14:23:53 +0100, Andy Hall
wrote:

I have a Zircon detector (actually two different ones) and they work fine.

Did you locate any zircon?

:-)

That was a gem....

Andy Hall wrote:
On 2007-10-27 13:59:05 +0100, Andy Dee said:

Do any of these reliably work?
I just bought a Bosch DMF 10 (not cheap either!) with the hope of
locating studs beneath my plasterboard/tiled bathroom wall.
Bearing in mind that I have some idea where the studs are by
measuring, I cannot get the Bosch to give repeatable positions.
Sometimes I can get a trusted reading but vertically up or down from
this position, it cannot find anything to verify it as a stud.
On occasions it latches up bleeping slowly. This is not mentioned in
the manual so no idea what it means.
Its not the live wire detector as I know where the cables are and it
bleeps frantically when it finds one.

Andy.

Are you using it correctly? The usual way is to calibrate over a
blank area and then to move the detector horizontally until the studs
are found.

I have a Zircon detector (actually two different ones) and they work
fine.



Yes. tried everything.
This one is no good at detecting wood but magic at detecting metal.
I was able to find the lines of nails going down each stud and hence
find the studs that way.

Andy

On Sat, 27 Oct 2007 15:24:18 +0100, Andy Hall
wrote:

On 2007-10-27 15:05:19 +0100, Frank Erskine
said:

On Sat, 27 Oct 2007 14:23:53 +0100, Andy Hall
wrote:

I have a Zircon detector (actually two different ones) and they work fine.

Did you locate any zircon?

:-)

That was a gem....

No it wasn't.

DG

No it wasn't.

It was Robin saying "Good gadgets Batman why isn't there any Zircon on
this planet?". :-)

On Oct 27, 10:59 am, Andy Dee wrote:
Do any of these reliably work?
I just bought a Bosch DMF 10 (not cheap either!) with the hope of
locating studs beneath my plasterboard/tiled bathroom wall.
Bearing in mind that I have some idea where the studs are by measuring,
I cannot get the Bosch to give repeatable positions.
Sometimes I can get a trusted reading but vertically up or down from
this position, it cannot find anything to verify it as a stud.
On occasions it latches up bleeping slowly. This is not mentioned in the
manual so no idea what it means.
Its not the live wire detector as I know where the cables are and it
bleeps frantically when it finds one.

Andy.

Another idea. Have had good success with a very strong small magnet.
Using those culled out of an old hard drive or somesuch part of a
scrapped computer.
Able to find the nails/screws holding gyproc (plasterboard) to studs.
One can not only 'feel' the presence by sweeping the magnet across the
surface but once a nail/screw is found quite often the magnet will
stick and stay at the location of the fastener! through the small
layer of plaster that has filled the 'dimple' over the fastener.
BTW we had two such magnets and they would hold to each other through
a sapling some 45 mm (2 inches) thick! If the two came in contact some
job to pry them apart! Magnet technology has come along way since
before WWII!
Also btw one can sometimes feel the vibrations (here it is 60 hertz,
yours 50) in electric wires with such a powerful magnet; providing
current is 'flowing' through the wires. For example was able to feel
the vibration of current flowing to a 3000 watt 230 volt heater by
putting magnet close to the flex, even though the flex was twisted and
contained a third non current carrying earth/ground wire!
Those circular magnets from an old microwave oven magnetron can be
useful too! If you don't want your hand tools magnetized keep the
magnets out of your tool box!

On 27 Oct, 13:59, Andy Dee wrote:
Do any of these reliably work?
I just bought a Bosch DMF 10 (not cheap either!) with the hope of
locating studs beneath my plasterboard/tiled bathroom wall.
Bearing in mind that I have some idea where the studs are by measuring,
I cannot get the Bosch to give repeatable positions.
Sometimes I can get a trusted reading but vertically up or down from
this position, it cannot find anything to verify it as a stud.
On occasions it latches up bleeping slowly. This is not mentioned in the
manual so no idea what it means.
Its not the live wire detector as I know where the cables are and it
bleeps frantically when it finds one.

Andy.

I got one out of Lidl/Aldi's about 3 weeks ago that works fine for £10
and found both the studs and where the nails were without any
problem. Can't remember now which shop it was but they were still in
stock this week.

Rob

On Sat, 27 Oct 2007 13:42:08 -0700, robgraham
wrote:

On 27 Oct, 13:59, Andy Dee wrote:
Do any of these reliably work?
I just bought a Bosch DMF 10 (not cheap either!) with the hope of
locating studs beneath my plasterboard/tiled bathroom wall.
Bearing in mind that I have some idea where the studs are by measuring,
I cannot get the Bosch to give repeatable positions.
Sometimes I can get a trusted reading but vertically up or down from
this position, it cannot find anything to verify it as a stud.
On occasions it latches up bleeping slowly. This is not mentioned in the
manual so no idea what it means.
Its not the live wire detector as I know where the cables are and it
bleeps frantically when it finds one.

Andy.

I got one out of Lidl/Aldi's about 3 weeks ago that works fine for £10
and found both the studs and where the nails were without any
problem. Can't remember now which shop it was but they were still in
stock this week.

I've tried various detectors on my tiled bathroom wall, and get
numerous spurious 'responses' all over, which leads me to believe that
the tiles must have some sort of metallic glaze.

In fact I've just this minute tried a spare tile from a box of spares
and it exhibits the same phenomenon. It's a Spanish "Metropol" tile.

--
Frank Erskine

Whereabouts and how big are they in the hard drive ? I have an old
one and need a good magnet.
Will also put out a separate thread.
Thanks,

Nick


Another idea. Have had good success with a very strong small
magnet.
Using those culled out of an old hard drive or somesuch part of a
scrapped computer.