Megger MFT-X1, definitely a step backwards.

Hi guys & gals,

I gave in and bought the new Megger MFT-X1. Got my hands on it Friday night, had a little play with it, used it at work on Monday and wrapped it back up on Monday evening, ready to send back...

I've been using my megger 1720 for about 7 or 8 years for domestic and commercial testing and lots of fault finding and I wanted to start testing EV chargers, hence I bought this new beauty. But soon I realised that's all it is, a beauty.

Now I was looking online for non sponsored reviews to see if anyone is experiencing the same level of frustration as me but I can't seem to find any. So I started writing a list of pros and cons, the latter a lot longer unfortunately.

Here comes the list... Please tell me if I'm wrong in any way and try to convince me to keep it, although I think it might be waste of breath.

Pros:
- It can test EV chargers but so can the 1741+

- I'm really "flipping" struggling here.


Cons:
- No proper auto start for live tests like in the 17 series. You need to "prime" the test by pushing the test button before touching live terminals for Zs or RCD. Can't just plug it in and wait for it to start.

- Insulation resistance test takes 5 seconds of loading before it shows you ANY reading.

- Newly designed croc clips that come with it are rubbish. Rounded in the middle so wires slip out.

- No normal probes come with it. Only some oversized long ones.

- Doesn't come with padding for the neck strap and the neck strap has 2 tiny buckles on it for no apparent reason. They're just there to snap and drop your tester as a result.

- The current test is barely used by anyone in domestic or commercial. Why do I have to turn the dial past it every single time when I want to go to low Ohms or MOhms tests... If we want to measure amps, we'd just use our simple clamp meter/voltage indicator with clamp on it.

- It's heavy.

- It says you can get a battery carrier for AA batteries but that's not available (yet) . So if your rechargeable battery dies, you'd have to wait 30min to charge it. That's about a quarter of the time it takes me to do a full EICR. (Apparently 30min charge gives half a day of usage).

yes, but when rules change again you can update it without buying a new one

I'm not impressed of the new tester looking on a download, nearly 2 grand, where some manufacturers like metrel and kewteck nearly the same price
Shows you how to test and a indecator pass or fail.

Got mine a few weeks ago. I find the operation easy enough once you get over the fact it doesn’t auto live test once it sees the voltage.
had a problem with the battery not charging fully, my wholesaler swapped it straight out for a new tester at the instruction of Megger.
we have several older Megger units and this one isn’t really that different. I liked the idea of firmware upgrade without having to replace the teste.
not sure where people are getting £2k price from as mine was significantly less than that, perhaps a little negotiable with the wholesaler

Biggron said:

Got mine a few weeks ago. I find the operation easy enough once you get over the fact it doesn’t auto live test once it sees the voltage.
had a problem with the battery not charging fully, my wholesaler swapped it straight out for a new tester at the instruction of Megger.
we have several older Megger units and this one isn’t really that different. I liked the idea of firmware upgrade without having to replace the teste.
not sure where people are getting £2k price from as mine was significantly less than that, perhaps a little negotiable with the wholesaler

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Are you a megger rep?

@Biggron maybe you can answer a couple of things someone told me last time I was at City.
I asked him how he was getting on with it, his summary was "they haven't got it right yet". I asked for more info:

Firstly he reckoned that all the loop tests were low current and he couldn't make it do a high current. I seriously doubted this - can you confirm he was missing something? It looked as though one of the top function keys changed it but I didn't try this myself when I played with one.
Secondly (more believably) he reckoned the ability to store results and beam them to software relies on doing the tests in the order they want. (This is a bug bear of mine as I want to do IR testing last when the containment is back together, not work through one circuit at a time.)

MJPD29 said:

Are you a megger rep?

Click to expand...

I most certainly am not. Ended up with Megger kits as that’s what the lads liked.

timhoward said:

@Biggron maybe you can answer a couple of things someone told me last time I was at City.
I asked him how he was getting on with it, his summary was "they haven't got it right yet". I asked for more info:

Firstly he reckoned that all the loop tests were low current and he couldn't make it do a high current. I seriously doubted this - can you confirm he was missing something? It looked as though one of the top function keys changed it but I didn't try this myself when I played with one.
Secondly (more believably) he reckoned the ability to store results and beam them to software relies on doing the tests in the order they want. (This is a bug bear of mine as I want to do IR testing last when the containment is back together, not work through one circuit at a time.)

Click to expand...

Oh I don’t think it’s perfect but what tester is? A lot depends on what you’re comfortable with.

Yes you can change the individual settings of each test function, at first I thought it was by just the top function buttons but by accident also found out the right hand dial can do so as well.

As for the storing and beaming of results (only to icertify I understand) I can’t comment as that’s not something I’m interested in using as we use the nic portal. I did listen to a comment from a fellow spark who hadn’t got it to work smoothly yet.

I seriously considered the X1, my main interest being that it should be able to connect to a laptop and auto-fill the results. This would remove any chance of an error due to my dyslexia. Currently I photograph my 1730 for certain readings as a double check against my notebook entries.
However, I'm not convinced more time would be saved than my (admittedly inefficient) notes+photos method; Bluetooth just ain't that reliable and I certainly do not want to be locked to one piece of software for anything. Comments about the croc's etc are interesting.

Biggron said:

I did listen to a comment from a fellow spark who hadn’t got it to work smoothly yet.

Click to expand...

Did megger make a tester has a toy, winder it up and off you go, me I still use me megger 1720 thinking should I by a x1
Thinking not when you have got other manufacturers doing better.

wrpizza said:

Hi guys & gals,

I gave in and bought the new Megger MFT-X1. Got my hands on it Friday night, had a little play with it, used it at work on Monday and wrapped it back up on Monday evening, ready to send back...

I've been using my megger 1720 for about 7 or 8 years for domestic and commercial testing and lots of fault finding and I wanted to start testing EV chargers, hence I bought this new beauty. But soon I realised that's all it is, a beauty.

Now I was looking online for non sponsored reviews to see if anyone is experiencing the same level of frustration as me but I can't seem to find any. So I started writing a list of pros and cons, the latter a lot longer unfortunately.

Here comes the list... Please tell me if I'm wrong in any way and try to convince me to keep it, although I think it might be waste of breath.

Pros:
- It can test EV chargers but so can the 1741+

- I'm really "flipping" struggling here.


Cons:
- No proper auto start for live tests like in the 17 series. You need to "prime" the test by pushing the test button before touching live terminals for Zs or RCD. Can't just plug it in and wait for it to start.

- Insulation resistance test takes 5 seconds of loading before it shows you ANY reading.

- Newly designed croc clips that come with it are rubbish. Rounded in the middle so wires slip out.

- No normal probes come with it. Only some oversized long ones.

- Doesn't come with padding for the neck strap and the neck strap has 2 tiny buckles on it for no apparent reason. They're just there to snap and drop your tester as a result.

- The current test is barely used by anyone in domestic or commercial. Why do I have to turn the dial past it every single time when I want to go to low Ohms or MOhms tests... If we want to measure amps, we'd just use our simple clamp meter/voltage indicator with clamp on it.

- It's heavy.

- It says you can get a battery carrier for AA batteries but that's not available (yet) . So if your rechargeable battery dies, you'd have to wait 30min to charge it. That's about a quarter of the time it takes me to do a full EICR. (Apparently 30min charge gives half a day of usage).

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Spot on. I have exactly the same problems with X1 unfortunately

wrpizza said:

Hi guys & gals,

I gave in and bought the new Megger MFT-X1. Got my hands on it Friday night, had a little play with it, used it at work on Monday and wrapped it back up on Monday evening, ready to send back...

I've been using my megger 1720 for about 7 or 8 years for domestic and commercial testing and lots of fault finding and I wanted to start testing EV chargers, hence I bought this new beauty. But soon I realised that's all it is, a beauty.

Now I was looking online for non sponsored reviews to see if anyone is experiencing the same level of frustration as me but I can't seem to find any. So I started writing a list of pros and cons, the latter a lot longer unfortunately.

Here comes the list... Please tell me if I'm wrong in any way and try to convince me to keep it, although I think it might be waste of breath.

Pros:
- It can test EV chargers but so can the 1741+

- I'm really "flipping" struggling here.


Cons:
- No proper auto start for live tests like in the 17 series. You need to "prime" the test by pushing the test button before touching live terminals for Zs or RCD. Can't just plug it in and wait for it to start.

- Insulation resistance test takes 5 seconds of loading before it shows you ANY reading.

- Newly designed croc clips that come with it are rubbish. Rounded in the middle so wires slip out.

- No normal probes come with it. Only some oversized long ones.

- Doesn't come with padding for the neck strap and the neck strap has 2 tiny buckles on it for no apparent reason. They're just there to snap and drop your tester as a result.

- The current test is barely used by anyone in domestic or commercial. Why do I have to turn the dial past it every single time when I want to go to low Ohms or MOhms tests... If we want to measure amps, we'd just use our simple clamp meter/voltage indicator with clamp on it.

- It's heavy.

- It says you can get a battery carrier for AA batteries but that's not available (yet) . So if your rechargeable battery dies, you'd have to wait 30min to charge it. That's about a quarter of the time it takes me to do a full EICR. (Apparently 30min charge gives half a day of usage).

View attachment 111093View attachment 111094View attachment 111095View attachment 111096

Click to expand...

wrpizza said:

Hi guys & gals,

I gave in and bought the new Megger MFT-X1. Got my hands on it Friday night, had a little play with it, used it at work on Monday and wrapped it back up on Monday evening, ready to send back...

I've been using my megger 1720 for about 7 or 8 years for domestic and commercial testing and lots of fault finding and I wanted to start testing EV chargers, hence I bought this new beauty. But soon I realised that's all it is, a beauty.

Now I was looking online for non sponsored reviews to see if anyone is experiencing the same level of frustration as me but I can't seem to find any. So I started writing a list of pros and cons, the latter a lot longer unfortunately.

Here comes the list... Please tell me if I'm wrong in any way and try to convince me to keep it, although I think it might be waste of breath.

Pros:
- It can test EV chargers but so can the 1741+

- I'm really "flipping" struggling here.


Cons:
- No proper auto start for live tests like in the 17 series. You need to "prime" the test by pushing the test button before touching live terminals for Zs or RCD. Can't just plug it in and wait for it to start.

- Insulation resistance test takes 5 seconds of loading before it shows you ANY reading.

- Newly designed croc clips that come with it are rubbish. Rounded in the middle so wires slip out.

- No normal probes come with it. Only some oversized long ones.

- Doesn't come with padding for the neck strap and the neck strap has 2 tiny buckles on it for no apparent reason. They're just there to snap and drop your tester as a result.

- The current test is barely used by anyone in domestic or commercial. Why do I have to turn the dial past it every single time when I want to go to low Ohms or MOhms tests... If we want to measure amps, we'd just use our simple clamp meter/voltage indicator with clamp on it.

- It's heavy.

- It says you can get a battery carrier for AA batteries but that's not available (yet) . So if your rechargeable battery dies, you'd have to wait 30min to charge it. That's about a quarter of the time it takes me to do a full EICR. (Apparently 30min charge gives half a day of usage).

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Patrick
Megger have just sent out 4 updates for this model which covers the issues you have picked upon.

There are 2 sets of clips the grab clips are great,

Regarding the strap yes that is poor

Also the Bluetooth doesn’t even work yet.

Gave up on Megger when a 1700 series died on me whilst testing a campsite - failure of IP rating. And then when I ordered another 1700 series it arrived with the top and bottom not being joined together!

Cant say the X1 fills me with any confidence.

I just sold a 1720 upgraded to a 1741 plus, opened the box, and found one of the red buttons was crooked and sent megger a nice letter, I had a rep pop
Over to sort it out,

Had to pop over to a job where a friend was testing an installation with his MFT X1.

He was testing a smoke circuit with 5 detectors installed.
He found that when trying to carry out a RCD x 1 @ 30mA and 3 or more smokes heads were attached to the bases, the tester would fail >300ms.
If 3 or less heads were fitted, then test would come back around 29ms.
He spent hours testing each leg of the circuit for faults (all fine), changing the combination of smokes, changing the test settings rcd type and even replacing all the smokes but still the same outcome.

I told him to swap the rcbo over for one he’d tested to rule out a fault rcbo.… but the same thing happened.

I told him to try a small load on the circuit by fitting a pendent / led lamp on the last smoke base but remove all the heads… The rcd test passed this time.

Thats when i headed over and tried my 1741+ to test the circuit. Set to rcd auto / 30ma and low a behold with all the heads attached I got a complete set of reading all within the required times.

It would appear some of the sensitive electronics in the heads has an effect on the X1 rcd testing. He’s made the call to megger.

It’s not the only issue he’s had with it either. It’s been sent back twice before.

To be honest, like the op said, it’s a vanity unit. If you have a functioning MFT already it really is a waste of money… And now a worry for my mate who is questioning his passed readings.