WHAT IS A PAT

What is a PAT? 'PAT' is short for … "Portable Appliance Tester"	Ethos 9500	Seaward Supernova

These instruments are made to make the job of testing electrical equipment easy and do the job, we believe, better than any other instrument – mainly because this is what they have been specifically designed for. Furthermore, the appliance under test simply plugs in to the PAT – i.e. no messy test leads. Some people think that a $29 multimeter is all that is needed unfortunately this is not the case. The multimeter may work well to test many things but will not meet the requirements of AS/NZS3760.
	Metrel Omega/Beta PAT Metrel AlphaPAT	A $29 multimeter is not capable of testing the safety of an appliance.

WHY IS A PAT TESTER DIFFERENT FROM A MULTIMETER?

.. a multimeter will not normally do a 500 volt Insulation Test or a high-current Earth Test for class I equipment (earthed) nor a Leakage Test. A multimeter will show if an earth is in tact, but not its integrity.

The following examples give further details of the Earth Test & Insulation Test/Leakage Test – these are the tests done by some PATs (not all PATs are the same and careful research is required to make sure that a PAT will perform all the tests as required by the Standard AS/NZS3760:2003:

For more info on:

EARTH TESTING

...more info on INSULATION TESTING & LEAKAGE TESTING

more ...Info on

RCD USE & TESTING

PAT COMPARISON CHART

plug into our research – see what’s out there and what they can do.

Contact us on: 0800 METROTEST (0800 638 768) for New Zealand

or for Australia 1800 789 973

Fax: (03) 572 7075