driving your meter

[Guest111]

At a recent electrical event a fellow forum member and I were being shown the latest testers by a well known company,and the latest trick is not only to have the tick or cross to indicate a perceived good or bad reading but also a red or green light.This led us to a discussion on people losing the ability to "drive" their meters.By this I mean the ability to interpret a reading beyond a straight pass or fail.For example does that fall in resistance mean the circuit is faulty or is their a capacitor connected somewhere?Is that high R1+R2 down to a loose connection or merely a dirty contact in a socket?Yes being able to set a series of parameters on a meter is handy at times but this thing with red and green lights etc seems to me to be taking a lot of the old skills away,after all no matter how expensive your meter may be at the end of the day it's only as good as the person who interprets the readings.

 

[Silly Sausage]

A fully functioning, calibrated instrument in the hands of a fool is just the waste of a good piece of equipment.

 

[telectrix]

A fully functioning, calibrated instrument in the hands of a fool is just the waste of a good piece of equipment.

you seem to be doing OK with your calibrated bow and arrow. :smilielol5::smilielol5::smilielol5::smilielol5::smilielol5:

 

[Silly Sausage]

you seem to be doing OK with your calibrated bow and arrow. :smilielol5::smilielol5::smilielol5::smilielol5::smilielol5:

Yeah, but I'm a special kind of idiot! :smilielol5:

 

[Marvo]

I think it started with the advent of digital testers. With analogue you could detect many anomalies in the circuit by the speed of the needle movement, the stabilty of the needle etc, what you were watching was an indicator that was directly connected to the circuit in test.

With digital there's always electronics sitting between the circuit and the result your seeing. The number displayed is an interpretation of what the tester is connected to plus there's a sampling rate to deal with so you can no longer actually see any small anomalies, they just get expressed as an error or 'noise'. This was the beginning of the deskilling of the tester and it's gone progressively worse from there and sooner or later it's going to boil down to 'go or no-go' testing where the person has no actual function other than to connect the leads.

 

[davesparks]

Or maybe a return to the really old testers? Look at the early earth loop impedance testers and some just have a row of lamps to indicate the maximum fuse size allowed and no actual reading!

 

[Engineer54]

Or maybe a return to the really old testers? Look at the early earth loop impedance testers and some just have a row of lamps to indicate the maximum fuse size allowed and no actual reading!

Can't say i've seen one of those babies, who made/manufactured them??

 

[UNG]

I think it started with the advent of digital testers. With analogue you could detect many anomalies in the circuit by the speed of the needle movement, the stabilty of the needle etc, what you were watching was an indicator that was directly connected to the circuit in test.

With digital there's always electronics sitting between the circuit and the result your seeing. The number displayed is an interpretation of what the tester is connected to plus there's a sampling rate to deal with so you can no longer actually see any small anomalies, they just get expressed as an error or 'noise'. This was the beginning of the deskilling of the tester and it's gone progressively worse from there and sooner or later it's going to boil down to 'go or no-go' testing where the person has no actual function other than to connect the leads.

Marvo you raise some good points which highlight how the choice of meter can be the difference between finding the fault or chasing your tail. There are times when a moving coil meter is far better than a digital meter although some of the high end digital meters are getting better with the bargraph displays as well as the digital reading.

The meter that Phil mentions comes with access to firmware updates as the Regs change so the meter can be flashed with the latest data so it always tests to the current regs looked to be a nice piece of kit but is it all needed. How would it sound in court if you were to give evidence and say it must be right the green light on the meter said so

I was challenged a few years ago by a guy because my MFT was a "16th edition meter" and we were now on the 17th edition so I asked him to tell me what the difference was and if my meter could be used to test an installation installed to the 15th edition got a very blank look and then had to explain exactly what an MFT is and no matter how it is labelled will still carry out the same tests needed to comply with the regs. There is a lot of kit out there that is sold because people can't grasp the basics of what an MFT is although similar things happened in the days of the separate meters

At another event I was at with Phil we got talking to the Fluke rep and having mentioned some of the test kit we own he seemed a bit surprised that sparks would own such high end test kit. Having said that he had a few IR thermometers and thermal imager's on display not exactly everyday test kit and not that cheap.

Back in my college days we were taught how to select the right test instrument based on it's input specification and the job in hand and having done that it was then how to understand and interpret the readings obtained this is where today's training lacks so much and where "driving the meter" is a lost skill but there is always an internet forum these day's that will always accept random questions. May be the next step will be test meters that can be viewed remotely over the internet by an experienced spark while there is a meter monkey on-site being guided by the spark

How many actually use all the functions of their MFT or even understand what some of the added / extra functions are for, reminds me of the BT engineer who came to fix my broadband pulls out his laptop and sets the data tests running I had a look at the live readings on screen and was chatting to him about them he admitted he didn't have a clue what it all meant all he needed to see was that 2 of the parameters were within a certain range the fact that I was using a similar tool on radio networks meant I knew more about what he was doing than he did

You can have the best test kit money buy but if you don't know how to use it or understand and interpret what it is telling you then you have wasted your money or alternatively you may be under educated in your chosen trade or just plainly in the wrong trade

 

[trev]

I had a spark on a job a few years back who refused to test at all because "I'm not trained for it" when I asked him about that he said because he didn't have 2391 he shouldn't be testing. I then pointed out that there's a module on the 2330 (as was) covering I&T and that every electrician should be able to test his/her work and interpret the results, he went very quiet.
He didn't last long.

 

[UNG]

I had a spark on a job a few years back who refused to test at all because "I'm not trained for it" when I asked him about that he said because he didn't have 2391 he shouldn't be testing. I then pointed out that there's a module on the 2330 (as was) covering I&T and that every electrician should be able to test his/her work and interpret the results, he went very quiet.
He didn't last long.

Heard that one a few times

IMO the 2391 and all the other 23XX courses have a lot to answer for although they are a module type of course there is nowhere that states that you must have certain certain number of modules or a number of modules from defined groups to achieve a "qualification" of electrician. While to some electricians because the 2391 has become the de-facto I&T qualification it absolves them from testing

The 2391 has removed a lot of the underpinning knowledge and skill from I&T with a lot of colleges spending course time on past papers and how to pass the exam based on if you see enough questions you will know the answers without too much thinking rather than teaching and imparting the skill, although if the C&G entry requirements were adhered to then the candidates should have an amount knowledge already as practising electricians. When I did the 2391 there were a lot of lads on the course who didn't have clue why you would select a particular meter and there was little teaching on the subject

 

[trev]

When I did it the second time there were a good few apprentices on it who, imo, were nowhere near ready for it. There were also a few non electricians, one of them was a taxi driver who had been told all he'd need was the 17th and 2391 then he was god to go.
I can see the college's point, they now have to run like businesses and it's all income that they can then spend but this was blatant disregard for C&G's own rules, the taxi driver and several of the apprentices failed. I think more would have gotten through had the non electricians not taken up so much of the lecturer's time on questions they would/should have known the answers to if they had been practicing electricians who were already familiar with the I&T process. I also don't think it was very fair of the college to take their/their employer's money for a course that they were pretty much doomed to fail before they even turned up.

 

[UNG]

When I did it the second time there were a good few apprentices on it who, imo, were nowhere near ready for it. There were also a few non electricians, one of them was a taxi driver who had been told all he'd need was the 17th and 2391 then he was god to go.
I can see the college's point, they now have to run like businesses and it's all income that they can then spend but this was blatant disregard for C&G's own rules, the taxi driver and several of the apprentices failed. I think more would have gotten through had the non electricians not taken up so much of the lecturer's time on questions they would/should have known the answers to if they had been practicing electricians who were already familiar with the I&T process. I also don't think it was very fair of the college to take their/their employer's money for a course that they were pretty much doomed to fail before they even turned up.

I think I was fortunate when I did the 2391 as the lecturer who normally took the course was off work having had a knee op found out that during the course that there had been a number of complaints about his 2391 teaching method which was to just go through all the past papers and learn the answers. The lecturer who we had took 10 of the 12 weeks of the course did a mixture of past papers and analysed some of the questions in depth and taught the reasoning behind the answers and the things like the calcs needed to reach the correct answer the normal lecturer came back for the last few weeks and there was a noticeable difference in teaching methods. Out of a class of 24 I think most passed the practical exam although this was held over a number of weeks in small groups after the course and before the the written exam. The written exam was a different story a good number left during the first hour and 2 hours in only six or seven were left of 32 taking the exam I don't know how many passed but a few that stayed to the end seemed to feel they had failed despite it being their third or fourth attempt and those leaving during the exam their body language said a lot as I didn't feel you could complete that paper that quick and get a pass

 

[LeeH]

I cannot remember struggling with the 2391 at all, but I had a great lecture and I did it before my AM2 while everything was still fresh from the previous 3 years.

Doubt I could pass it if I sat it tomorrow though.

 

[davesparks]

Can't say i've seen one of those babies, who made/manufactured them??

I've found a picture of a 'clare' one

But I'm sure messrs Evershed and Vignoles made them too.

 

[PEG]

I cannot remember struggling with the 2391 at all, but I had a great lecture and I did it before my AM2 while everything was still fresh from the previous 3 years.

Doubt I could pass it if I sat it tomorrow though.

The theory part of the 2391,i found very straight forward,not having a bad memory,and enjoying maths since an early age...the practical was my nemesis. I have never liked people staring at me whilst i work,even as a kid. On the day,the C&G Inspector was on site,examining my examiner whilst he examined me! I would have swapped that for a septic gonad...:stooge_curly: seems to follow me,this theme,as the night before my HGV test,i had a dream that a child ran out in front of the wagon,mid test. Following morning,half way through test,driving through Hyde,a dog came from nowhere and ran right under the front N/S wheel. Dog survived,and examiner remarked it was lucky for us both,as i checked mirror before braking,as hitting brakes "just for a dog" (his words),was a fail. It is for these reasons my "adult movie" audition was a short one...