Cable tester
electronic device used to verify the electrical connections
A cable tester is an electronic device used to verify the electrical connections in a signal cable or other wired assembly. Basic cable testers are continuity testers that verify the existence of a conductive path between ends of the cable, and verify the correct wiring of connectors on the cable. More advanced cable testers can measure the signal transmission properties of the cable such as its resistance, signal attenuation, noise and interference.
Basic tester
Generally a basic cable tester is a battery operated portable instrument with a source of electric current, one or more voltage indicators, and possibly a switching or scanning arrangement to check each of several conductors sequentially. A cable tester may also have a microcontroller and a display to automate the testing process and show the testing results, especially for multiple-conductor cables. A cable tester may be connected to both ends of the cable at once, or the indication and current source portions may be separated to allow injection of a test current at one end of a cable and detection of the results at the distant end. Both portions of such a tester will have connectors compatible with the application, for example, modular connectors for Ethernet local area network cables.
A cable tester is used to verify that all of the intended connections exist and that there are no unintended connections in the cable being tested. When an intended connection is missing it is said to be "open". When an unintended connection exists it is said to be a "short" (a short circuit).
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This entry incorporates text from “Cable tester” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.