Megger PAT4 Tester.

[JohnW]

Hello everybody!
I have a problem with a Megger Pat4 DVF/3 tester. I had just tested a few items (fan, jigsaw,angle grinder) and moved on to another area. Plugged the tester in and "Check fuses FS1 & 4" was displayed. These fuses were found to be ok, but I changed them anyway, with the same result/display. This fault locks out the tester, so I cannot continue.
Does anybody have any ideas/solutions?
Many thanks

JohnW

[richard]

Hi John

Welcome to the forum and thanks for your post. I have just spoken to a company I know who has been using some 60+ Megger Pat4 DVF/3 testers in use in the field for the last 10 years. They said they had also come accross this message on testers occasionally. Unfortunately I believe it requires specialist intervention to solve.

They suggested sending it back to Megger for repair if still under warranty, or to a independant repair centre if out of warranty.

Not sure where you are based in the country, if you are in the South West we have a spare Megger Pat4 DVF/3 tester in the office if you need to borrow one.

Regards Richard

[JohnW]

Richard.
Many thanks for your Help and advice in this matter, and also the offer of a loan machine. I work within a factory (Johnson & Starley) in Northampton, so, to a certain extent, I can defer these tests to to another time. I came in during the factory shutdown to do the PAT testing, but when the tester threw a wobbily I went home....hence the delay in my reply.
I will do a bit of surfing to find a suitable place to get this thing repaired. Megger quoted me £330 repair + £99 for calibration, + postage..etc,etc. ( I can virtually buy a new one for that!).

Many thanks again Richard.

Regards
JohnW.

[richard]

Hi JohnW

Thanks for your reply. Hopefully you have got your Megger PAT4 sorted now?

We have almost 17 machines here of different makes and models and obviously the only use they get is when we are providing support for people when they are downloading and we need to go through the menu options etc with them. The rest of the time they spend time on our shelves gathering dust. While we are happy to lend them to anyone temporarily, we don't keep them calibrated as it would cost a fortune.

regards, Richard

[JohnW]

Hi Richard,
Again, apologies for the (considerable) delay in my reply.
I sent the Pat4 to our usual calibration house, (Quasar) for repair, but they in turn sent it back to megger! In all the repair took 5 weeks. in addition, the price went up from the £429 quoted in my last post, to 500 quid! Now I could have definately bought a new one for that.
In retrospect I would not buy another Pat4, as I think they are not very user frendly.
I saw, and operated Fluke and Seward units on a PAT test course and they seemed more straight foward to operate than the Pat4, smaller and lighter.
I have only the basic software for this unit, so presenting the results in a usable form is a pain. Converting from .csv to .xls, deleting various columns, re-titleing the column abreviations so as they can be understood, etc etc.
Hopefully, I can get the company to invest in the proper s'ware and a barcode reader. Oh look! did you see that pig flying overhead?
Thanks once again for your help Richard.
JohnW.

[richard]

Hi John

Many thanks for the update on the saga with the Megger PAT4, sorry to hear that getting it fixed has turned into a bit of a nightmare.

I must admit I do like the Megger PAT4, it does operate a bit differently to the other PAT test machines on the market, but we have a customer who has bought almost 100 Megger PAT4's over the last 10 years and whilst initially they had some reliability issues, in the last 6 or so years they have been extremely reliable.

Yes the Fluke is a nice unit, very compact and has seemed to be very popular with our users. Seaward do some great units, the Seaward Europa plus is our favourite and again our users always report positive things about this seaward machine.

If you find yourself down in Cornwall, your welcome to drop in as we have nearly 20 different PAT testers here which your welcome to try.

Regarding software, should you manage to get hold of those flying pigs, please consider SimplyPats as a solution for downloading which ever PAT tester you decide on.

I have asked Carl to send you an email with details of our latest offer on the software.

Regards, Richard.