[arobinsonaudio]

After spending ###### loads of money a year to get stuff PAT Tested I have decided it is time to buy one. Can anyone point me in the direction of where I can buy one?


[mnote]Duplicate in Elec & Power deleted[/mnote]

[Brian]

I got mine, a Kewtech KT71, here.

[arobinsonaudio]

Thank you

[Yorkie]

I would recommend not buying from PAT Training Services Limited. They contacted me over six months after dispatching my test equipment to request payment (they had made an error with the original transaction)

[Boggy]

I assume you are also going to get some training in PAT testing (or have had some).

[Steevo]

Do you need a training course for these?

[arobinsonaudio]

I have already done the training

[timtheenchanteruk]

well, yes and no,
you DO need to prove you are competent.
IF something happened, and it was deemed to be an equipment fauly, YOU would have a hard time proving your competency without a bit of paper saying you are (IE a training course cert.)

A copy of THIS is advisable too.

Theres alot more to PAT than just whacking it on the machine and pressing go (if you do it properly).

[itiba]

Yorkie, on 11 June 2012 - 09:10 PM, said:

I would recommend not buying from PAT Training Services Limited. They contacted me over six months after dispatching my test equipment to request payment (they had made an error with the original transaction)

Well to be fair to them I did recently purchase a new multi function tester from them at 2 pm in the afternoon and the next morning it turned up in great condition (also at the best price I could find on the internet)

[DrV]

itiba, on 16 June 2012 - 07:20 PM, said:

Yorkie, on 11 June 2012 - 09:10 PM, said:

I would recommend not buying from PAT Training Services Limited. They contacted me over six months after dispatching my test equipment to request payment (they had made an error with the original transaction)

Well to be fair to them I did recently purchase a new multi function tester from them at 2 pm in the afternoon and the next morning it turned up in great condition (also at the best price I could find on the internet)

I also bought a PAT tester from them fairly recently (October 11) and it arrived promptly without problems. Yorkie, was the payment dispute resolved? IMHO the mark of a good company is not whether they make occasional mistakes but how they resolve them.

Dave (No connection with PTs!)

This post has been edited by DrV: 16 June 2012 - 11:03 PM

[Rigger]

Hi all, new member.

When I bought a PAT (many moons ago) I got a Bar Code Scanner as well, each year this saves a lot of time as the item description and location is already known so you needn't enter it again.

So it is literally:
Test (1 button on pre programmed units)
Scan (1 Click)

When finished print test certificates and sign them off - job done.

[Brian]

Rigger, on 17 June 2012 - 03:51 PM, said:

Hi all, new member.
...
When finished print test certificates and sign them off - job done.

Hi, and welcome to the Blue Room.

Sorry to do this to your first post but I couldn't disagree more.

Industry figures point to 90%+ of faults being 'mechanical' in nature...loose cord grips, loose screws in plugs, damaged insulation, you get the idea. The time taken to perform the 'electrical' test makes up a fraction of the time taken to do a proper PAT test.

In addition, a proper PAT test involves looking at the results and the previous result. Has the earth bond value changed? By how much? What might this indicate? Simply scanning a barcode, pressing 'Test' and printing the result does not, in my book nor the powers that be's book, constitute a proper PAT test.

[Rigger]

Brian, on 17 June 2012 - 05:49 PM, said:

Rigger, on 17 June 2012 - 03:51 PM, said:

Hi all, new member.
...
When finished print test certificates and sign them off - job done.

Hi, and welcome to the Blue Room.

Sorry to do this to your first post but I couldn't disagree more.

Industry figures point to 90%+ of faults being 'mechanical' in nature...loose cord grips, loose screws in plugs, damaged insulation, you get the idea. The time taken to perform the 'electrical' test makes up a fraction of the time taken to do a proper PAT test.

In addition, a proper PAT test involves looking at the results and the previous result. Has the earth bond value changed? By how much? What might this indicate? Simply scanning a barcode, pressing 'Test' and printing the result does not, in my book nor the powers that be's book, constitute a proper PAT test.

Yes of course, I was refering to the use of the machine process compared to a basic machine. you cant speed up the rest of the process.

This post has been edited by Rigger: 17 June 2012 - 06:13 PM

[paulears]

As a newcomer to testing - I've found it a bit of a pest writing out the labels manually, and recording the results (as my tester doesn't do this) - but I've actually found the results interesting from the few items that did fail. Items that I thought unlikely to fail, but well used - had earth wires simply not tight. Really simple stuff to fix for a Pass - but unless I'd bought the tester, I'd probably have not thought to check. Many of the items I tested were inside the date on the existing labels stuck on my kit by external testers who had tested them when in various venues - but failed. So even with the Pass label on, were unsafe. I discovered age had little to do with the failures, just use! I was just keen to build up the database with initial results so the next tests mean something as per change.