Troubleshoot ground loops quickly without disconnecting anything

Pasadena, — Loop Slooth (see photo) from Circuit Insights LLC enables the user to quickly determine which cable or cables are involved in a ground loop without disconnecting anything, turning hours or days of frustration to minutes with this tool.

Which cable is causing a ground loop? Circuit Insights Loop Slooth (patent pending) makes it possible to find ground loops fast without disconnecting anything, the company says.

Ground loops are frustrating, says professor Paul Bellan, founder ofWhy did he do it? “After investing substantial time and money putting together an electronic instrument system that is supposed to measure an important signal, what you get is corrupted by a ground loop. Chasing down such a ground loop has traditionally been a frustrating experience like trying to find a needle in a haystack — you could spend hours or days searching without success,” he says.The Loop Slooth from Circuit InsightsThe Circuit Insights Loop Slooth consists of two battery-powered modules, an Exciter and a Detector. The Exciter uses a proprietary clamp-on transformer to induce a high-frequency current in a ground loop —

Read other articles in the October 2008 System Integration eNewsletter

Fast link: Read other articles below, also included in the October 2008 Control Engineering System Integration eNewsletter.

Because the Detector is tuned to the same frequency as the Exciter, the Detector responds only to the signal injected by the Exciter.Scroll through two more see how Circuit Insights Loop Slooth finds a simple ground loop .Related reading from Control Engineering : Ground loops: Causes and cures .– Edited by  Mark T. Hoske , editor in chief Control Engineering System Integration eNewsletter Register here and scroll down to select your choice of eNewsletters free .

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