Re: Not on the wall socket
But if you have a lot of kit, small tech company, etc, then it probably makes sense to buy a proper tester
Training courses are available at many local colleges and not terribly expensive too. For a small company the expense of a bit of kit and training up one or even two employees would probably pay back in a couple of years.
And you will avoid the cowboys who deliver this service for a fee. They waltz into an office, plug in, push a button and hope. They rarely do proper visual inspections and they rarely actually understand the results they get. We had one a few weeks ago who stuck a "passed" sticker on a desktop UPS, despite the fact that his insulation resistance test had actually killed the device (I suspect probably just a blown internal fuse, but haven't yet checked) so the remaining tests were worthless. At school, the children report that following PAT the computers "usually don't work properly". Some won't boot, some boot but slowly, some won't talk to the network.
Worth noting that the regulations don't actually mandate (despite what some companies will tell you) 12-monthly inspections. When engineering at a radio station many years ago I did most of the PAT and "broadcast chain" equipment in racks - being officially "portable" but in reality screwed down - got tested as little as possible, perhaps every five years. Conversely things like extension leads which were out and about quite a lot had visual inspections every time they came back and a full-blown PAT maybe as often as every quarter.
M.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
