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What is the difference between a Watch Dog and an Alligator?
Loose Wire – NADWS
A Watch Dog meter will only detect a full break whereas an Alligator meter will pick up on a nic.
As a heating cable heats, expansion occurs. For this reason, it is very important to ensure that heating cables are installed completely intact. To ensure that Warmup heating cables are installed without being compromised, it is recommended to test with our Alligator. The Alligator, as stated above, can detect a small nic in the cable and this is very important because heating the nic will cause it to expand and grow to a full break. The Watch Dog is not recommended by Warmup because the alarm only sounds in the event of a full break.
The Warmup Alligator is a digital multimeter that we recommend leaving clipped to the lead wires on a 200-ohm scale during installation. At all times – before, during, and after installation, the cable should be +/- 5% of the core-to-core resistance listed on the product box or cold tail tag. If you notice your resistance outside of this range, contact Warmup. Total resistance loss can mean a full break and fluctuation can alert us to a nic.
You can follow along with the below video if you are testing a Warmup system with an Alligator.
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