A stud finder is a good, well option to find a stud in the walls which you can’t see with your naked eyes. Knowing where those studs are is very hard. So firstly, you must have to be sure about the stud to screw into them when you are hanging something substantial like a mirror, LCD TV. Some stud finders come with advanced technology and have many other features like the in-depth scanning feature and the AC wire detection. But it does not mean that they will always do what they are supposed to do. There is a lot of other things going on in the walls, and it can be tough despite the advancement in technology. For any device, it is hard to find the difference between the pipe and the wire from outside of the wall. You need the best stud finder to do this work done correctly.
Testing of a stud finder
A four-by-eight feet wall has some common materials like copper, black, PVC pipe, and the non-metallic sheathed cable is used for the examination. Then the experts scanned the wall with each of the stud finders. All the stud finders worked as expected when they are used to detect the studs, but the stud finders with advanced technology designed to find the live AC wires did not work. The steel studs, metal pipe, and ductwork could impair live-wire detection. So the test is again organized after removing the steel studs and metal pipes and builds a new wall. Again the stud finder worked as expected for finding the studs but just done a slightly better job in finding live wires not perfect.
Results of the test and conclusion
So the analysis shows that the stud finder machine is perfect for finding the studs but failed when the live AC wire detection is started. So in simple words, I suggest you buy standard best stud finder rather than purchasing the advanced technology live wire stud finder. Because it doesn’t matter how advanced stud finder you had bought, it fails to detect the live wires completely by just partially showing the result.