phil d
Well-known member
Given that we have the constant argument about whether or not testing is classed as live working(personally I think it isn't) and now we have that silly rule about only the tiniest bit of metal being exposed on a probe tip I was wondering what everyone's opinion of it is? Personally, I think that a lot of the time it's hard to get a decent contact with a terminal, say for example in a ceiling rose and potentially this could lead to someone thinking something is dead when it isn't. I remember at one of the elex events, I got discussing this with another spark and he was dead against anything but the tiniest amount of bare metal on a probe, he nearly had a fit when I said that I like a good 5 to 10 mm of metal exposed.
If you can't safely handle a probe with that amount of exposure then should you really be going into things that are live anyway, and if you have only got the small amount exposed how do you really know it's made contact with the terminal? Reading back on some of the old posts it does appear that a lot of the rules and regs are made up by people who have little or no experience in actually doing the job.
Another dodgy one I noticed the other day was a particular make of voltstick, again I know not everyone likes them, but I feel they do have their uses. Anyway most of them are either permanently on, or have a button that you hold in while checking for a voltage, either way you know the tester is powered up, there are some that have a latching on/off button, my Fluke has this, but when on it has an led that lights up white, so you know it's on, that's fine. There is however one make that has the switch but no indication of whether it's on or off, so conceivably it's possible to think it's on when it isn't, I actually saw someone do this recently, used it to see if something was live, it was, turned it off and placed it back in his pocket, then went to use it again and forgot to turn it on, fortunately I warned him about it.
Now I know we shouldn't use them for proving dead, but regardless of this, do you think it's a good idea for a piece of what is basically test equipment to be able to be turned off without it being clear that it is turned off.
If you can't safely handle a probe with that amount of exposure then should you really be going into things that are live anyway, and if you have only got the small amount exposed how do you really know it's made contact with the terminal? Reading back on some of the old posts it does appear that a lot of the rules and regs are made up by people who have little or no experience in actually doing the job.
Another dodgy one I noticed the other day was a particular make of voltstick, again I know not everyone likes them, but I feel they do have their uses. Anyway most of them are either permanently on, or have a button that you hold in while checking for a voltage, either way you know the tester is powered up, there are some that have a latching on/off button, my Fluke has this, but when on it has an led that lights up white, so you know it's on, that's fine. There is however one make that has the switch but no indication of whether it's on or off, so conceivably it's possible to think it's on when it isn't, I actually saw someone do this recently, used it to see if something was live, it was, turned it off and placed it back in his pocket, then went to use it again and forgot to turn it on, fortunately I warned him about it.
Now I know we shouldn't use them for proving dead, but regardless of this, do you think it's a good idea for a piece of what is basically test equipment to be able to be turned off without it being clear that it is turned off.
msl1: 
