Voltage Indicator Fault

[Amp David]

What would you think numb nuts

 

[oldtimer]

10 month send it back

 

[MarkieSparkie]

...and my sales receipt was destroyed in a localised bonfire in the filing cabinet!

 

[oldtimer]

Hi, I have the same problem. Again, my voltage tester came free with an MFT bought from Test-Meter. It's a HandyMAN TEK900 and looks identical to the one linked to by Derek, except for being red instead of yellow (I think these are all made by Metrel and sold under various brands).


The Auto Test lights up all the lights, but when testing with a known supply only the polarity and single pole phase LEDs light up - not the voltage lights. There is also no indication of continuity when the probes are shorted together.


I didn't get a warranty with this so opened it up to see if I could fix it myself - am I still entitled to a free replacement? It's 10 months old. I did find that the lead insulation was damaged inside the casing (strange?) but wasn't able to fix it.


Sam

What do you mean you did not get a warranty ? if you bought it online then you will have an online account as proof of purchase or the invoice they emailed you as well . These things dont get stripped down and fixed they get binned and replaced.

Sorry mate nothing is adding up for me here.

 

[Selfmade]

10 month send it back

Thanks for the advice - reckon I'll wait until Monday and see if Test Meter are offering a prepaid envelope (as they have to others) to send it in - the cost of postage would be a fair proportion of the cost of a new tester!

 

[Selfmade]

What do you mean you did not get a warranty ? if you bought it online then you will have an online account as proof of purchase or the invoice they emailed you as well . These things dont get stripped down and fixed they get binned and replaced.

Sorry mate nothing is adding up for me here.

Yes indeed I do have the receipt and account. Just nothing that specifically says "if this breaks within X amount of time we will repair or replace it" - i.e. no explicit warrantee as such. Of course they may still choose to for the sake of reputation etc and there may even be statutory rights, but none of these things are quite the same as a warrantee. Looking online I see that most voltage testers are not advertised as having a warrantee.

I understand that economically it makes more sense for manufacturers and suppliers to replace than repair these things. But for me it made more sense to see if there was something simple like a loose connection that I could fix myself than to make a special trip to the post office, pay to send it, be told that it was not covered by any warrantee, then have to buy a new one anyway!

 

[Guitarist]

Did everyone try replacing the batteries? I've often had weird faults, even on brand new units, which turned out to be a rubbish pre-installed battery (often older stock at a guess).
Just a thought...

 

[Selfmade]

Did everyone try replacing the batteries? I've often had weird faults, even on brand new units, which turned out to be a rubbish pre-installed battery (often older stock at a guess).
Just a thought...

Hi, I tried rechargeables - unused, pre-charged and about three months old to be precise. Still same problem.

 

[Guitarist]

Remember, rechargeables are 1.2v (whereas alkaline are 1.5v) so unless you can choose the voltage, some gear will think the battery is low.
Also, rechargeables do NOT hold their charge for very long, so not great for low-drain applications, and definitely won't be full after 3 months.

 

[Marvo]

Rechargable batteries are great for some things but I wouldn't use them in test equipment due to their voltage being 20% lower than normal batteries.

 

[Silly Sausage]

As Guitarist, that was my thinking as well.
I've had trouble with an old Megger Loop/RCD tester on rechargers. Just flags up noise on the line when doing loops, and basically ends up being a random number generator! (May as well sit in the local cafe and write out the reports! )

 

[Guitarist]

Rechargable batteries are great for some things but I wouldn't use them in test equipment due to their voltage being 20% lower than normal batteries.

Unless the tester has a specific setting for rechargeables, such as the Megger MFT1730

 

[Guitarist]

As Guitarist, that was my thinking as well.
I've had trouble with an old Megger Loop/RCD tester on rechargers. Just flags up noise on the line when doing loops, and basically ends up being a random number generator! (May as well sit in the local cafe and write out the reports! )

You mean like a lot of these large firms who end up in the papers, when someone dies....

 

[Marvo]

Unless the tester has a specific setting for rechargeables, such as the Megger MFT1730

Every day's a school day, I don't own a tester that's less than 10 years old and I had no idea that some of the more newfandangled testers were designed to use rechargables.

 

[telectrix]

As Guitarist, that was my thinking as well.
I've had trouble with an old Megger Loop/RCD tester on rechargers. Just flags up noise on the line when doing loops, and basically ends up being a random number generator! (May as well sit in the local cafe and write out the reports! )

thought that was your normal practice. :bucktooth: