ericmark
Junior Member
I no longer work so just interested on how things have progressed. Around 2000 I had to do a lot of PAT testing and thought it would be good to store results on the PC. However I was some what disapointed with software.
Whole idea is it would flag up trends where items were starting to for example show less insulation resistance each year. And also to reduce paperwork.
However most although they stored the info did not flag the changes and the log on process was very much flawed. I had with Robin software where some one forgot to enter there code in the tester and a whole batch of testing was done under the wrong name. Opening the save data file using VB I was able to change it to the correct name but then realised I could view all the passwords and I could change the data with ease. Rather defeted the whole idea so all tests were printed and signed.
The installation tests were also somewhat less than expected I had thought as I entered the details it would auto flag faults for example where the earth loop impedance was too high but I ended up writting my own in Excel to flag faults rather than have to manually calulate.
Now 12 years since I was the electricial engineer having to log and file all the results and I would guess things have moved on. So question is have they?
So with a modern PAT tester do you need to log on every time you boot up or do they still assign items to wrong guy if you forget?
Have they made the files secure or can you still change everything using a simple VB program?
Do they now reduce paperwork or does everything still need printing and signing?
And does it auto flag up faults like loop impedance too high or too low for tripping or let through value of fuse/breaker?
In other words why use computers to log test results?
Whole idea is it would flag up trends where items were starting to for example show less insulation resistance each year. And also to reduce paperwork.
However most although they stored the info did not flag the changes and the log on process was very much flawed. I had with Robin software where some one forgot to enter there code in the tester and a whole batch of testing was done under the wrong name. Opening the save data file using VB I was able to change it to the correct name but then realised I could view all the passwords and I could change the data with ease. Rather defeted the whole idea so all tests were printed and signed.
The installation tests were also somewhat less than expected I had thought as I entered the details it would auto flag faults for example where the earth loop impedance was too high but I ended up writting my own in Excel to flag faults rather than have to manually calulate.
Now 12 years since I was the electricial engineer having to log and file all the results and I would guess things have moved on. So question is have they?
So with a modern PAT tester do you need to log on every time you boot up or do they still assign items to wrong guy if you forget?
Have they made the files secure or can you still change everything using a simple VB program?
Do they now reduce paperwork or does everything still need printing and signing?
And does it auto flag up faults like loop impedance too high or too low for tripping or let through value of fuse/breaker?
In other words why use computers to log test results?
