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In Reply to: RE: Why would reversing AC leads reduce hum in a component? posted by jedrider on February 10, 2017 at 08:00:37
The Elfix polarity tester has been around for ages. It's device to help you identify the proper orientation of hot/neutral. There's a brief explanation of it at the link. I have one of these in a drawer somewhere that I bought a long time ago.
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Any multi meter can tell you if the outlet is wired correctly. Using bayonet leads measure the narrow (HOT) slot to the ground (round) hole. It should be 120vac. Do the same for the wide (Neutral)slot, it should read a few volts to zero.
If these results are not what you see the outlet is wired incorrectly and you need to seek professional help.
That is not quite the principal the Elfix works on, although in the end it is about hot/neutral orientation. Because you cannot easily determine what happens to polarity inside the box, their idea is that one orientation of the plug would result in less of an EMF being generated by the box. The little gizmo measures intensity of the magnetic field generated, and you change orientation of the plug at the wall to find out which way generates the least reading. I played with it long time back and did find on some of my components plug orientation really did produce markedly different readings on the Elfix. Other components it made no difference at all with plug orientation.
"That is not quite the principal the Elfix works on..........Because you cannot easily determine what happens to polarity inside the box,"
Is it weird science then? I tried to do a search to see what principles is does adhere to but was not successful.
My voltmeter is pretty straightforward with polarity.
Out of curiosity I dug my Elfix outta the drawer to see if there was some better explanation of the theory of operation in the user instructions. Unfortunately no luck. Just basic how to use info. Although, they do say that does exactly the same thing as the Namiki Direction Finder, but for a lot less money. I did a google on Namiki, but could not find anymore explanation of its operational premise than the Elfix. I've had this thing for probably 20 years. When I bought it seemed like possibly useful tool, however it turned out to be more of a novelty item than tool. Once you know, according to it, what proper orientation is, the Elfix is useless. At best a one-time use.
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