Pat testing - can you recommend a good app?

110 volt leads have no neutral, both line and neutral is live, so with 110 volt you have line 1 and line 2 so in theory core colours brown, black, green/yellow however never seen those colours used. The biggest problem with a 110 volt extension leads is overloading and melting due to using yellow bricks which can supply 50 amp without blowing fuse line to earth. So the lead causing the short say crushed with scaffold pole is easy found, but the lead supplying that one may have melted and the cores while in the cable can dissipate heat better than cores where the yellow outer has been stripped back, so you have to open either a plug or a socket to check, I hated 110 volt leads as so time consuming to test them.

It is the same with the yellow brick, have to remove lid to check, as 50 amp can do such damage. As to sites where there are no yellow bricks and there is a twin pole MCB on each outlet, than visual without removing plug may be considered OK, but can you be sure those leads have never been used with yellow brick transformers?

If your tester is not designed for 110 volt, then maybe a plug in tester
martindale-cp301-industrial-check-plug.jpg
would do a better job, at the end of the day your signing to say the item is safe to use, I am sure we all take chances, or should we call it a risk assessment! And we also have to know when to fold, I had this with vending machines, the boss wanted me to test them, I said without access to inside the machine and a manual I could not test them, they did not belong to us, so the contract was worded so the supplier was reasonable for all testing and maintenance. It was on our register, but said against it tested by name of firm.

The inspection and testing of in-service electrical equipment requires when it is taken out of service it is entered on the repair register and once repair noted on the equipment register, this can mean more than one firm doing the testing, and of course more than one person, the big problem we found using Robin software, so some one would forget to log onto the machine, so the person who used it before was logged as being the tester. It was found using VB one could access and correct the records, but that also means if some one makes an error they can change the record to show some one else had done the testing.

After the foreman was caught falsifying the records, it was decided the computer record was not good enough, so at end of testing, the results were printed in short form so many items on one page, and the pages signed and filled, the file was marked wanted until and a date 5 years in future, they were never looked at, but because they existed, no one tried to falsify the records again.

Testing the odd item is OK, but a day testing I hated, I timed the machine doing a class I item, for it to go through it's automated process took 3.8 minutes, so 8 hours divided by 3.8 = 126 so that was the maximum one could test in a day, removing a plug top to check a fuse size or for burnt cables means doing a good job than around 50 items a day, but people cheat, and one sees lists where 200 items have been tested in a day. OK test a PC and the lead set and computer are tested together so one test but two items, and class II are also faster, however try telling the boss it's not you being slow, it's the others cheating. So spending 10 minutes after a repair to test and enter item back on in service register is OK, a day doing nothing but testing is not, and with 0.75 mm² lead sets, you would not believe how many 13A fuses had to be swapped for 3A, either some one was nicking the 3A fuses and replacing them with 13A, or no one else ever checked fuse size.

Anyway good look with the exam.
 
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Often it's the hand drier in the toilet, hard wired, so it would need isolating and removing to do standard PAT test
Why does something that’s hard wired need a PAT test?
 
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PAT is not the correct terminology the IET term is
"In-service Inspection and Testing of Electrical Equipment"

which includes fixed equipment
 
Why does something that’s hard wired need a PAT test?
All in service electrical equipment needs inspecting and testing, it does not matter how heavy it is or if it has wheels i.e. if it drops into the portable category, I had to with two other electricians test one item which had wheels so yes portable that took us two days to complete, it was a batching plant which was brought to site on 22 tractor units, i.e. formed an articulated vehicle. Try doing that one for a £1 an item.

The majority of the tests were if gate switches or door switches worked, it had a built in earth leakage monitor and control circuits were IT. And it was not purely electrical inspecting and testing. This also applies to small items, the guard on a grinder is not electrical, so even with the guard missing it could still be electrically safe, however putting a green pass label on it would be rather stupid.

Where I worked in the office they has a radio with a figure of 8 lead set, 2.5A class II. That would pass tested in the office, but same item on the factory floor would fail, as the lead could be unplugged and dropped onto the wet floor.

Yes installation is separate to equipment, but the dividing line is not hard and fast, I would not PAT test ceiling lights, although theory these are in service electrical equipment, but since not touched by users of the building these were normally included in the EICR, but hand driers did need testing as in service electrical equipment, of course it is down to the building manager to set the dividing line, where a semi-skilled person is used to do PAT testing then really he should only be re-testing equipment which has been already tested once by a skilled person and the testing procedure set out. With the Robin tester we used once first tested and number entered then it would I seem to remember prompt as to what tests were required.
 
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Perhaps it shouldn’t be called PAT testing then? When I used to do it, I was told that PAT (Portable Appliance Test) ONLY applies to items that are portable. I.e they had a plug on them and they could be moved. Surely a hand drier that is (presumably) bolted to the wall and powered via a wall outlet is classed as a fixed appliance and therefore cannot come under PAT testing.

 
Calling it PAT testing is like calling it an MOT where the ministry of transport has long since gone but we never called it a DOE or any of the other departments it came under. Every bit of electrical stuff in use needs testing and inspecting at intervals, be it installation or an appliance, some one has to decide who will do it, and when it is done.
 
Lol. Point taken about the MOT test. I have long wondered why it was still called that even though we've gone through VOSA and now DVSA.
 
Yep, I am now responsible & qualified (92% pass yay!) lots of electrical stuff - not just portable.
And it's very confusing to determine the frequency of testing as the COP has more than the table Motman posted above as it also includes the location which can affect the frequency of testing - this is something that many of us struggled getting our head around.

When I have to test the stand drill in the workshop there is IMO going to be problems, as the MD uses it a lot (I think its his) and he has made a speed controller for it so disconnecting for a test it is not going to be easy lol

As for the hand drier in the ladies loo oooeerrrrrr! :)
 
OK as an update to this:
Shoot - its been 5 months and now I get asked to test something - gotta read up on stuff again lol.
Anyhooo - the app I was asking about, I have been trying out the free KewPat app and this seems to work well with a manual tester, I just setup the appliance as I come to it, run a manual test and then enter the results in the app.
At the end of the day I can either provide a PDF of all test results or email a CSV file to our admin who will import that into the asset database (that's being redone so this can happen) making life much easier for me.
I made it clear that I'm not filling out that form (from the guidance book) by hand for every item :)

Also, the app has the ability to scan barcodes, Kewtech can sell you an expensive barcode printer that they say is the only one that the app works with.
Not so fast Kewtech - I have found that the app can scan a code-39 barcode (tested at https://barcode.tec-it.com/en/Code39 ) and it brings up the details of a previously tested item - so Im going to see if I can either find a barcode printer or buy a roll of sequentially numbered premade barcode labels.

Then it will be: Open app, scan barcode, perform manual/visual tests, record results (common results set as default) and slap a label on it. Email results.
If I'm gonna do it then I'm gonna make it a quick and easy as I can. (well apart from me insisting on performing maintenence/cleaning the tools being tested etc.)
 
Check out the Dymo tape printers- some of them will do barcodes as well via a bit of software you can use to lookup asset IDs in your asset database/spreadsheet
 
We are going to give all assets a completely new number, so I can obtain a roll of pre printed labels with sequential numbered barcodes on to make looking up the item details easier.
This will be the easiest and cheapest solution to the barcodes as getting a printer then all the rolls for it etc. will cost more than a couple of pre printed barcode rolls :)
 

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