Armada Technologies Pro290 Underground Wire and Cable Locator

First of all, I never write reviews, however this product saved me so much time and effort I have to provide my endorsement. I have multiple products which may require the use of the pro290: the husqvarna 450x automower which utilizes an underground boundary wire, an invisible fence for our dog, as well as a fairly complex 12-zone irrigation system. I think the pro290 would work to find wires for all three systems but I just utilized it for finding a break in the automower boundary wire. It literally took me less than 5 minutes to find the break!In addition I called Armada to get advice on the best unit to purchase (p290 vs p300) and they were very helpful in enabling me to make the most informed decision(the p290 is very capable in tracing underground wires and detecting full breaks; the p300 provides a little more benefit in detecting buried irrigation valve boxes).All around excellent experience and very reasonably priced unit given the amount time and work saved.

I have a large underground sprinkling system with 18 valves spread over about 6 acres. Even with the system map I could not find the valve that failed...spent about 2 hours looking for it. I bought this to help find the valve...and any future valve that fails. It took me about 2 min to scan the manual to understand how to use it, about 2 minutes to hook it up and about 5 minutes to find the valve. I'm really happy with this. It worked very well. As a generic statement, I like it better when an item comes with the first set of batteries but at 8 C cell batteries I understand why it doesn't. I definitely recommend this wire detector!

I've written maybe 3-4 reviews, so the product has to be pretty good for me to spend the time. The Pro 290 performed exactly as specified. I called Armada Technologies and talked to Kevin in sales as I was unsure which model to purchase the 290 or the 300. There's a significant cost increase when jumping up to the 300. Kevin convinced me that the 290 would be my best bet. My intended purpose was to locate pet fencing wire. There wasn't any breaks in the line, I just needed to find out where the cable was as I needed to add new heads to the sprinkler system. The case is very nice, holds all the parts you need with room to spare. Instructions are easy to follow. Located the wire and marked it with a flag, then dug carefully around and the cable was within 2" of where I marked. What I really like was the call I made to Armada, as typical, an automated response gave me 4-5 options, selected sales, they answered on the second or third ring. spoke english and very informative about the products. How many places have you called and talked to someone you can understand or worse yet, you never get to talk to anyone. I gave it 4 star rating because I'm not sure how well it will do locating a broken wire. hopefully I'll never find out. Don't know about you, but customer service, which is a lost cause in the USA, is a major selling point for me. So, excellent product, excellent customer service. The only con is the number of batteries, (8) that the unit requires.One thing I've learned as a DIY for many many years is once you're done with the project and the unit is going to sit for a unknown period of time, remove the batteries, so the next time you go to use it only to find that the batteries have corroded and ruined the terminals and you're either buying a new unit or send the old one in for repair. Been There.

Looks Good!

This is a piece of junk in my opinion. The thing is presented in a cheap blow case and the hinges and catches break in no time. The handheld receiver feels like a children's toy. You could not make it any cheaper if you tried, many kids toys are made much better. The unit itself takes C cell batteries and only has an on/off switch with one red LED to confirm its on. You can easily forget that its on, their is no beeper or count down timer to turn it off to save your batteries. You forget and come back to find you have to spend $14 or more on new batteries. You get an auto switch off on $10 items from China. For this sort of money you would expect half decent presentation, you can buy a aluminum case from Harbor Freight for $13.00. There is no excuse for this pathetic blow mould. You would expect to have a variable output transmitter, and led bar graph display, and a lithium battery and charger for this. I own a radio manufacturing business in the UK for 30 years, so I know what I am talking about. I will take it apart and photograph what you are paying for and get the innards costed by my R&D team. and supply you photos on another review. SAVE your money do not buy this piece of junk you are being ripped off.

We used this product to find the wiring for our Automower - our neighbor accidentally did a burn out on his tractor while cutting the grass and broke our boundary wire for our automower - this product made it more efficient to locate the wire breakage! Would recommend this product for that purpose all day long!