It is important that commercial businesses understand their electrical safety responsibilities, and with regards to PAT testing, this duty doesn’t change depending on the size and nature of the business and its operations. Whether a business is a large operation with multiple sites and a significant itinerary of portable electrical items, or a single small unit with only a dozen portable electrical appliances, the duty of the business to ensure electrical safety through a PAT testing programme remains the same. However, the business may choose to opt for different PAT testing equipment to carry out this task, and this is where manual and automatic PAT testers come under consideration.
Choosing the right PAT testing equipment
While PAT testing is a very important electrical safety task, it can be repetitive and laborious. You are essentially carrying out the same set of tests for all the portable appliances on your site, and for which you are responsible. Although this can be time-consuming and a resource-heavy task, another important consideration is the critical nature of the electrical appliances and the risk factor. In some cases a business may need to closely monitor PAT testing results, generate reports and carry out remedial action, while in other cases – perhaps in a small business with few employees and limited electrical hazards – a simple pass/fail indication is sufficient to satisfy the requirements for electrical safety in terms of a PAT testing programme.
Understanding these practical needs is where manual and automatic PAT testers make a big difference, because one might be much more suitable for your needs than another. So let’s understand a bit more about them.
What is a manual PAT tester?
A manual PAT tester essentially requires the user to have a greater understanding of the PAT testing process and the results generated, because there is more manual intervention required. A manual PAT tester, such as the TIS 600 supplied by Test Instrument Solutions, has fixed test sequences and provides very simple results. This model does have a small amount of memory to store results and refer back to them, but you need to remember to manually store appliance details so the results make sense. The TIS 600 has only a few functional buttons – ABC and arrow keys – to navigate between tests and to store results, and doesn’t have the ability to download results data or to print them out. Some more basic manual PAT testers have no memory at all, and therefore the user has to manually log results on paper, which can lead to errors, while some models simply have a PASS/FAIL indication for the various tests and don’t generate any test results at all.
So a manual PAT tester is ideal for businesses with only a small volume of portable appliances, and where the risk factor of the tests isn’t highly critical. It is also suited to businesses who just want a PASS/FAIL indication of safety, and don’t need to analyse data and apply cost considerations to a high volume of remedial work.
What is an Automatic PAT tester?
Also known as a downloadable PAT tester, an automatic PAT tester, such as the TIS 700 supplied by Test Instrument Solutions, performs the various electrical tests automatically with no set-up required, and also has data logging capabilities. So results are stored automatically, can be referred to quickly and can be downloaded and shared to generate extensive reports. This allows for a much faster testing process, with no errors, and hence is better for compliance purposes as you can produce professional reports to show results and can remove the possibility of human error in inputting or interpreting results.
An automatic PAT tester would usually have a QWERTY keyboard and a much bigger internal memory, and may also have the capability of using an SD memory card. It will allow you to connect to a PC and a software package to download the results. So you would use an automatic PAT tester in situations where you have a larger volume of portable appliances and are required to share results and generate professional reports on the results.
You can contact our experts at Test Instrument Solutions to discuss your PAT testing needs and which type of PAT tester is most suitable, and then you can order from our range of PAT testing equipment today.
Product Demonstration Video
Below is a product demonstration video of our TIS700 PAT tester product: