Volt sticks and what is you opinion

[Intoelectrics]

Put one in your top pocket of your boiler suit and everyone on site looks at you in awe as you are the master electrical engineer, you also need a few pens and a moleskin notepad to really pull off the look......

One of my apprentices keeps one with him all the time. I gave him a round of fk's the other day because I caught him testing to see if a circuit was dead only using the stick and not following safe isolating procedure. I explained to him the only real usefulness of the stick and if i caught him using it incorrectly again I'll stick his stick... well you know where. He got rather upset with me as it turned out that the stick was a gift from his mum..

 

[MDJ]

Totally pointless bit of kit really, looks good next to the neon screwdriver in your top pocket though lol, I would say though if you use a volt stick then have two taped together, the odds of both not working is a lot less than one which lets be honest never works every time, or find a bin for them.

 

[Squid]

One of my apprentices keeps one with him all the time. I gave him a round of fk's the other day because I caught him testing to see if a circuit was dead only using the stick and not following safe isolating procedure. I explained to him the only real usefulness of the stick and if i caught him using it incorrectly again I'll stick his stick... well you know where. He got rather upset with me as it turned out that the stick was a gift from his mum..

You should have told him that his Mum doesn't like him and is trying to get rid of him.......

 

[Marvo]

I'd agree they might be useful for finding certain types of faults but I have a company rule forbidding them because I think the temptation to mis-use them is too high. I personally don't own one.

 

[Squid]

I'd agree they might be useful for finding certain types of faults but I have a company rule forbidding them because I think the temptation to mis-use them is too high. I personally don't own one.

You live in South Africa, your car got hijacked and the Volt Stick was in the boot I bet........

 

[Marvo]

I never botherd buying one because I figured they're not sharp enough to fight of a hijacker with.

 

[Squid]

I never botherd buying one because I figured they're not sharp enough to fight of a hijacker with.

Ahhhh hand them out for free and then they kill themselves when fiddling the elecktrikery for their shanty hut........

 

[edexlab]

I worked for a while for a company doing maintenance/ installations on concrete plants

One company insisted in their safety rules, RAMS etc that we were to use a non contact method of testing for dead when doing Safe Isolation on equipment and plant

I was issued a volt stick with proving unit by my boss and told we had to use them on their sites to conform

So I just went through the motions with the voltstick and tested with an API afterwards to satisfy myself it was dead

Their Safety guy on one site tried to stop me doing it with the API as he said it wasn't company procedure !

I said I'm following your procedure and checking with my own tester to be sure as I don't have confidence in these devices, and a double check surely can't be bad

I said that the Hse don't recommend volt
sticks as per HSg85

He said I was wrong so I downloaded and showed it to him

His argument was that EAWR states that an appropriate device should be used

And this was an appropriate device........

I said ok you isolate this circuit with a volt stick and you pull the wires out if you're so confident

Funny that he suddenly remembered a meeting he had to attend off site and he'd do it another day

 

[telectrix]

i have a few sticks. the most useful is a sagem volt stick 230 pro. (google it).it has a unique fork tip so will only illuminate when the fork is around a live conductor. useful for finding out which cable is which when you have several in a switch box or similar.

 

[edexlab]

Funny how things change in time

I was looking through some of the early posts in the tools section and it seems that back in 2008 voltsticks were the best thing since sliced bread,

Most useful thing I found about them was when my kids were toddlers they loved them , sat quietly for ages mesmerized by a plastic flashy thing

( Before anyone gets upset this particular model was a fluke which self tested by flashing
I 100% did not encourage the kids to start poking them anywhere near anything with electricity)

So maybe nothing changes in people after all who can say that they don't love bright coloured plastic flashy beepy things

I guess that is until you start getting shocks because of it !

As said before can be a handy tool but not to be relied on

 

[Diver233]

I have found only useful as a guide to trace a cable in a bunch of cables, but I don’t have balls big enough to not recheck the cables are dead with my real meters.

 

[Deleted member 72666]

Always have one with me on jobs, wouldn't be without one.

 

[Lucien Nunes]

I can't understand the people who say they are useless. Have you never had a box with a dozen or two cables criss-crossing from one conduit to another, where you need to find which one to tap into or divert? Unless you use a non-contact indicator, you've got to cut a cable, test it, then joint it back together if it's the wrong one, which is daft. Or halfway along a trunking run with 57 cables in it, try to find all the reds that belong to one circuit?

These are common problems in telephone and data work where there might be 5,000 cables. With an oscillator and tone tracer you can sift through them and find the right one in a minute or two, but you've got to connect the oscillator to the circuit first. I sometimes do this with power circuits too but it's no good if the circuit has to stay live or might be live. The volt stick allows you to 'tone' a cable while it's still in use, because the mains is its own 50Hz 'tone' that the voltstick looks for.

Then, how about proving dead at a point where any or all of L, N and E might be damaged? If the N & E are severed but the L is still connected, an approved indicator will say it's dead while the voltstick correctly indicates that it's still live.

Horses for courses, so I carry both (and a donkey) in my toolbox at all times.

 

[andyb]

I must admit I don't quite see the point of a lot of the comments to this thread.
The OP was regarding the use of and peoples opinions on volt sticks, so why go on about safe isolation? volt sticks are not designed for or meant for this use.
It's like reviewing a Stanley hammer and saying, 'it's useless, it damages the screws I knock in with it'.

 

[Blissof89]

Good for sparks but outright lethal in the hands of a diyer or anyone else with limited electrical knowledge. If I ever see a builder or customer with one I advise them to get themselves a 2 pole voltage tester