Advice on Portable Appliance Testing please

[David G]

I have taken over the PA Testing for a building company I work for. They
currently have a basic Parker Bell PAT, which probably covers the basic
testing but I don't feel is very thorough. It passed an appliance which
would run slowly and emit smoke. An extreme case and probably safe from
personal safety point of view. It would also accept an incorrectly wired
plug.

We run 3 or 4 sites at a time with equipment spread between them all on
110v. On looking around at the various testers available I have homed in
on the Seward SuperNova Plus. This could be overkill since we do not
have hundreds of appliances, but the advantage I see is being able to

monitor the appliance degradation with regard to renewal
Run the appliance direct from the Tester to check performance
Can use either 240 or 110 supply so that they can be tested where found.
Keep a record of tests that can be d/l to computer.

I would appreciate anyones views or experience with this tester.

Before anyone says it, I realise that the first step is always a visual
inspection.


--
Regards


David G
(remove r u n)

 

[Andrew Gabriel]

I have taken over the PA Testing for a building company I work for. They

[Answering for the UK, as you mention 240V and 110V supplies.]

Get yourself booked on a C&G 2377 couse. It's 2 days and covers
what you need to know to perform PAT testing, and to manage PAT
testing (whether or not you are performing it). You do not need
to be a qualified electrician to do this C&G course -- it is
intended to be doable by anyone who knows how to wire a plug, and
what the difference is between milliohms and megohms. The HSE
recognise the two C&G 2377 certificates as indicating competence
to perform PAT testing, and to manage PAT testing.

currently have a basic Parker Bell PAT, which probably covers the basic
testing but I don't feel is very thorough. It passed an appliance which
would run slowly and emit smoke. An extreme case and probably safe from
personal safety point of view. It would also accept an incorrectly wired
plug.

A PAT tester isn't the thing which decides if an appliance
passes or fails -- it's the person operating it who does that.
The PAT tester may provide information which is useful in coming
to that decision, but it does no more than that. An item with an
incorrectly wired plug should have failed its PAT test before it
gets anywhere near the PAT tester. It is also common to perform
a basic functional test of an appliance after the PAT test, just
because it looks rather silly if you pass an electric drill as
it has no safety defects, but it doesn't in fact work at all.

PAT testing should also take into account the way in which a
tool is used and its suitability for the job. For example, you
should fail a hot air paint stripper which has nothing wrong
with it if it is actually being used as a hair drier by workman
coming in from the rain, as it's clearly not fit for the purpose.
A less clear example might be a 350W drill which is being used
to drive a 110mm core borer or a plaster mixer, both of which
are applications for which it is hopelessly underpowered and
likely to go up in smoke. This shows the importance of inspecting
the appliance where it is being used so you can see how it's
being used, as far as possible (not always possible).

We run 3 or 4 sites at a time with equipment spread between them all on
110v. On looking around at the various testers available I have homed in
on the Seward SuperNova Plus. This could be overkill since we do not
have hundreds of appliances, but the advantage I see is being able to
monitor the appliance degradation with regard to renewal

and frequency of PAT retesting.

Run the appliance direct from the Tester to check performance
Can use either 240 or 110 supply so that they can be tested where found.
Keep a record of tests that can be d/l to computer.

I would appreciate anyones views or experience with this tester.

Sorry, haven't used it, so can't comment on this.

Before anyone says it, I realise that the first step is always a visual
inspection.

Yep -- that picks up the incorrectly wired plug.

 

[David G]

Thanks for the reply

--
Regards


David G
(remove r u n)