Electronic hand tool maker Zircon Corp. has introduced a next-gen stud sensor with Target Control Technology that the company says virtually eliminates false positive wood stud indications.
The SuperScan Kx advanced stud finders, the company says, the product represents the culmination of years of technological development by the company.
“Zircon equates TC to the ‘black box’ control unit of a car,” the company says. “Multiple sensors stream data, combined with sophisticated intelligence, and automatically control vital functions (engine, brakes, and traction), resulting in significantly enhanced performance and safety.
“Zircon’s new TC works similarly—with multiple sensors streaming data, combined with sophisticated intelligence controlling the result—to virtually eliminate ‘false positive’ stud indications,” the company continues.
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According to the company, typical stud sensors are inconsistent and presents a number of challenges for users. For one, the units routinely give false positive stud indications. Unknown objects (other than the stud) hidden in the wall fool ordinary stud finders into falsely indicating a wooden stud when it’s really detecting some other object– metal, plastic, wiring, etc.
“With no filtering, no intelligence, and no control over the targets they detect, typical stud finders make it difficult to be sure of what they find,” the company says. “Where exactly is the stud when everything looks like a stud?!”
Even worse, many competitor models of stud finders are in a continuously “deep scanning” or hypersensitive mode, virtually ensuring users mistakenly find many more false positives than they would otherwise with a tool with appropriate sensitivity settings, Zircon explains.
But the new unit with TC Technology changes that forever, Zircon says. By analyzing complex data streams from multiple sensors and simultaneously controlling the result, TC lets users avoid all things metallic, such as plumbing, conduit, straps, brackets, or ducts hiding in the wall. It also helps avoid other low signal-strength, non-metallic targets, including plastic pipe, PEX tubing, wiring, and more.
“When a SuperScan advanced stud finder locates a wood stud, users can be confident that they have actually found a piece of wood,” Zircon says. “Even better, using the new ‘Trust but Verify’ technique, users can verify clean, ‘safe-to-drill’ zones along a stud by sliding the unit vertically, up and down the wood stud after they found it, thereby avoiding metal screws, nails, and protector plates fastened to the wood stud itself (assuming the builder properly installed protector plates over horizontal plumbing and electrical).”
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Offered at an affordable price, the K1 is optimized for interior drywall, uses TC technology that also spans across the entire SuperScan line, and addresses most users’ needs.
A step above, the K2 model offers the company’s DeepScan mode for double the scan depth through multi-layer surfaces such as paneling, flooring, etc. up to 1½ inches thick.
The K3 smoothly transitions between Target Control, DeepScan, and Metal Scan modes with the flip of a switch. The dedicated Metal Scan mode detects ferrous metal, such as steel, up to 3 inches deep and non-ferrous metal, such as copper pipe, up to 1 ½ inches deep. Metal mode avoids all non-metallic targets (such as wood studs) but can identify nail patterns in highly irregular lath and plaster walls, to indirectly locate the underlying studs.
Finally, the professional-grade K4 adds live AC wire tracing capability, with a four-mode switch, to all the functions outlined above.
The sensor family is available for purchase exclusively at shop.zircon.com.
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