Megger

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2 votes for 400v then

if it survives 400v on ohms, if not its back to get a 2nd one... what other punishments can i put it through?

best make sure i have some service head fuses spare...

 
What about a 12/240 bell tranny run backwards?......may not be enough current available

car battery and set meter to ohms or amps?

i know a bloke who elected to test his Earth loop with a chinkychonky multimeter set to ohms. He heard me say it was 0.24 and wanted to check for himself 

i didn't end in the way he expected it to

 
got a 300a welder, that should do it

as for bell transformer, i did once wire a 12v bathroom fan transformer the wrong way, not sure how long it produced 7200v, probably a few ms until the MCB tripped...

 
I don't understand why everybody assumes I'm referring to a 5 quid meter! I'm saying that depending on what you are doing then there's no need to spend 4 or 5 hundred quid on a meter when one for a hundred may do you.currently I have a Fluke 179, and yes it's a good meter, however when I first started off I had a cheaper one, and I'm still here, maybe because I remember the golden rule on using a meter, the first time you connect it across a set of terminals, you put it on volts! that way if there is a voltage there then you don't, A) get hurt, and B) fry a meter.

I think we're forgetting here that a young lad just starting off may not have several hundred pounds to buy a meter with, he may not even end up needing one, if he's only doing house bashing then a lot of sparks just use a Fluke test lamp, horses for courses.

 
So buy a really expensive meter so you don't kill yourself how professional does that sound !!!!

Then again my general day to day DMM is a 25+years old Fluke 27 bought in a liquidation auction I got 2 brand new and boxed for I think £125

The trouble these days the training doesn't have any focus on the choice of meter it's limitations and understanding the reasons why. Yes IMO cheap or cheaper meters have a place be it for occasional use or for situations that mean it is possibly a one use throw away because of the environmental conditions, yes I've worked in a few where i didn't want decent kit covering in all manner of lettuced.

Some of the more expensive meters have more functions and ranges than you often really need and some don't but then you get someone buying a complex meter to get more for his bucks and ends up getting confused by what it is reading and ends up in the mire it is all horses for courses. Assuming it is going to save your life and meter just because it says Fluke, Megger or (insert any other big brand name) creates a dangerous precedent

 
think i may have to go get a cheap meter and stick it across 400v on ohms just to see what happens... from a safe distance...


and the results are in. im actually a bit disappointed

had a cheap meter lying around. set to ohms, wired one probe to L1 and the other to L2 and switched it on. nothing really happened. it still worked afterwards

then set to amps withe 1 probe to L1 and the other to L2. switched on and it tripped the C16 MCB but that was it. quite uneventful really. not working now, probably blown internal fuse. maybe i should put something thatll go bang inside where the fuse is and try again

videos to go into youtube later

 
Over the years I’ve wrecked several meters, non from being on the wrong scale.

AVO’s don’t like being filled with water, being run over by a wagon or being dropped in to a rail hopper just as its being filled with stone. ITT meters don’t like being thrown down a flight of stairs (I ended up in hospital.)

 
The thing is, it's ok buying a dear meter, but how many people use fused test leads, and the correct ones at that, I mean with a 500milliamp fuse in them, not a 10 amp.

Incidentally I saw a video on YT from I think it was Canada, I won't post a link, it's a bit graphic, an electrician using an expensive meter was killed when it exploded! He'd entered a panel and for some reason went into the wrong side, it was around 6.5 Kv, the resulting flash destroyed the meter, the electrical cabinet, and sadly the electrician. Apparently he was very experienced, knew the plant very well, yet for some unknown reason went into the wrong panel, one can only suppose he wasn't concentrating, whatever the reason, he paid the ultimate price.

Let's be brutally honest here, I bet there isn't one of us on here who, if we're truthful, does the job by the book. Come on, hands up, who uses the insulated gloves when testing on a live installation, who wears the arc shield, not many of us, if any. The real trick is to be CAREFUL, and pay attention to what you are doing, even with the most expensive meter in the world, a momentary lapse in concentration is all it needs to guarantee that taking a simple measurement isn't going to end well.

 
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