PSA: That $50 ethernet tester from Amazon almost lost me a job

Bought this cheap Klein knockoff tester off Amazon for like 50 bucks last month. First big job with it in Denver and it kept saying my cat6 runs were bad when they werent. Swapped to my buddies Fluke and everything was fine. Anyone else get burned by a budget tester like this?

2 comments

2 Comments

derekward20d ago

Man that exact same thing happened to me with a cheap tester off Amazon. Told me a perfectly good run was bad and I spent hours chasing a problem that wasn't there.

the_piper20d ago

So that Amazon one, did it give you a false "open" reading or was it showing voltage where there wasn't any? I'm trying to picture what kind of screwup would send someone down that kind of rabbit hole. Like was it just a cold solder joint inside the tester itself that was making intermittent contact or was the whole thing just programmed wrong from the factory? I had a similar thing with a no-name multimeter that would randomly show 120V on a completely dead circuit, and that was enough to make me paranoid for weeks.