Bought a $90 wire tracer off Amazon and it found the break in 4 minutes after I spent 2 hours guessing
Last month I was at a house in Gilbert doing a takeover panel swap, and one zone kept showing fault. I checked the door contact, the wiring at the can, everything I could think of. Two hours of crawling through an attic in July heat. Then I remembered the cheap tone generator and probe kit I bought online for like $90. Clipped it on, walked the run, heard the tone die right where a rat had chewed through the cable above the laundry room. Four minutes. I felt like a moron standing there on a ladder with a tone probe in my hand. I had been using a multimeter and my own stubbornness for years because that is how the old guy who trained me did it. Now the tracer lives in my main bag and I do not touch a zone fault without it. So what is the one cheap tool you bought that made you feel dumb for not getting it sooner?
That tone tracer is a game changer for sure. Bought a cheap $30 endoscope camera last year after fighting to see behind a wall for an hour, and now I use it for everything.