Zircon MultiScanner i520 Center-Finding Stud Finder with Metal and AC Electrical Scanning

I have heard a lot of negative things about stud finders in the past so I was a bit skeptical of this one. I tested it out in Home Depot first, and it worked (under ideal circumstances of course), so I decided to go on amazon.com and give it a try (amazon has a much lower price).One thing to be aware of is it does not come with the required 9 Volt battery, so don't expect to pull it out of the package and use it right away, unless you have 9 volt batteries lying around the house. It comes with an instruction DVD rather than a good instruction manual for some reason. I prefer to read things rather than taking the time to watch a dry video of how to use a product. You can also download a one page pdf of the limited written instructions from the zircon website. Of course if you are the type that learns best by watching, you might prefer the DVD over a more detailed user manual.While those are the negatives, there are plenty of positives. First of all, the product simply works. While the instructions provided are not that useful, the device is very user friendly, so it does not need the best instructions. You might need to review things if you are going to use more advanced features that require calibration such as the deep scan or the metal or wire scan, but for the most part you simply push the button and run it over the wall. I have a relatively new house, and the studs are not all that deep, so the normal mode works fine. It was able to accurately find studs in the wall, and helped me to find the joist in my ceiling when installing a ceiling fan. While I haven't needed the electrical scan mode, I did play around with it and was able to trace the electric lines going to my light switches without trouble.I looked at a few different models, but I thought the added features of the 520 were worth the extra cost. If you plan on hanging anything heavy on the wall and you need to find a stud, I would strongly recommend this scanner.

Excellent device! I have a few different types of studfinders and this one works the best. It is great that it finds the stud and shines a light on the center of it for easy marking.You may read many other peoples difficulties with stud finders and they usually blame the unit. They are a tool and not infallable but this one is about as good as they come. Some walls are unreadable with any stud finder; there seem to be ghost studs in some walls, and some construction (remodels) are hard to figure out. A magnetic nail finder can find a part of a stud with a nail in it but the nail may not be centered (a problem for mounting something heavy) or may have missed the stud completely and been plastered over, and one could be looking in a studless area, such as when a window or door hole has been covered improperly.I highly recommend this stud finder, and practicing with it. Tapping the wall can be very misleading and one can poke a lot of small holes (to patch and paint later) with nails before a stud is found.This is as close to x-ray eyes as one can find for studs. It is worth the cost even for the very occasional stud finding job.Update 5-2-10:Unless you are unfortunate enough to get a defective i520 (or have a low battery) it would be difficult to not use this successfully. I have had problems with my other stud finders but this one is consistantly right on and it is very simple to use. I did not have it with me recently so I used the "tapping technique", was SURE I found a stud, and had to patch a hole; missed totally. I brought the i520 with me later and it found the stud about 6 inches from the tap spot. I would toss my other stud finders but they do help sometimes. The i520 finds the studs very easily and consistantly. I highly recommend this device and to watch the included DVD if you have any problems.

Using 1/2" drywall this accurately found any 2x4 stud behind it. The "center" marker was sometimes off, but it was always within 1cm, so i had no problem hitting the studs. I have some double layered drywall with green glue sound proofing between -> using the "deep scan" mode I was still able to locate the center of the stud within 1.5cm .If you are having a problem on stud mode try switching to metal and you might pick up some nails/screws. The metal mode seems to work pretty well for detecting larger metal objects like conduit, boxes, water pipes.The AC detection is the least accurate, unfortunately. I can't get it to reliably tell me where live AC is. I'll test for it, and then make a good judgement based on other outlets and general layout of the room - where the run may be. It works good when you're within a few inches of an outlet or junction box, otherwise its real spotty if it actually detects it, or if what it detects is actually ac wire.I had used Stanley and Ryobi stud finders on my previous job, and both had a hard time picking up studs at all, most the time it was easier to either knock or use a really small drill bit to find it. This one is leagues better then both in that field and I no longer struggle for more then a few seconds to find the right spot; also the metal and AC detection are definitely perks (even if they may not always work right).Definitely a good unit that I would recommend to anyone.