Recommend me an electrician's MFT

[bigegg]

I'm shopping for a MFT - an electrician's tester, not a festool table top!

I have a metrel "instaltest", which I like, but it doesn't do impedance tests.

There's so much choice, and it's a lot of money, so I want to get the correct one.

It's for domestic/light commercial use.

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[jimbo84]

Metrel always come highly recommended, they're UK and a very helpful sales team by all accounts. Megger are the doggies but you pay the premium for them, don't often hear a bad word against them. A lot of them now are menu driven whereas megger stick with the rotary dials to select functions which I like.

Budget ones are the kewtech which again I've heard good things about. I did my 2391 earlier in the year and they provided kewtechs for this, I think it was the K64, wasn't the biggest fan of it compared to my old megger, but may be after a bit more time with it I'd have got on better with it. The thing I did like was it had magnets on the back so you could stick it to the DB/ trunking instead of holding it.

I'm a member of some sparky groups and Paul Hanlon at The Calibration Centre Ltd. always come highly recommended for calibration and sales although I haven't used them personally.

I'm still rocking an old megger 1552, which despite what the schemes will try and tell you is out of date because you can't test the DC side of RCDs is in fact still fine for DC RCDs, I have the official line from Megger technical on it. Calibrates fine every year and covers everything I need.

 

[Martinb]

Di-log

Made in UK (Manchester?) good service, reasonable price and easy to use.

I bought a DL 9118 recently used every day its fine.

 

[Endeleus]

As Jimbo says, if you were using every day, I'd say the Megger, but at around the £1k mark it's not what I would recommend unless you're a jobbing sparky. I personally use the Megger MFT1741 which I can't fault.

The Kewtech K63 seems to be the budget MFT of choice at a lot of training centres, and is nice and straightforward to use.

 

[Endeleus]

Should say, the main difference I notice between the Megger and the Kewtech is the speed some of the tests run (RCD test, no-trip Zs test). That's probably the biggest noticeable difference you will find between the cheaper and more expensive machines on the core functions.

 

[mtt.tr]

Di-log

Made in UK (Manchester?) good service, reasonable price and easy to use.

I bought a DL 9118 recently used every day its fine.

I have that model dilog it is good i bought it being British made, has an annoying quirk in that on insulation test it discharges the cables but doesn't display the result so you have to be quick to read it.


Other than that I really like, does phase rotation aswell

Meggers are good, let down my terminals which become loose and give all sorts of results


I had a kt63 rcd test is rather slow dilog is quicker

On non trip it gives you l+e and l+n fault current and resistance

 

[dobbslc]

Megger 1731 used and abused every day on site, it gets wet, dropped, the probes poked into live 400v terminals when still set to read resistance.Proper heavy use, none of this wearing trainers to go house bashing business!
Still keeps working.

 

[J1nx]

Proper heavy use, none of this wearing trainers to go house bashing business!
.View attachment 264350

Says he with a Pret sandwich bag in the tool box

 

[dobbslc]

Coffee makes my world go round!

 

[bigegg]

Bought myself a Megger ltw325 loop tester, as demonstrated by Chris Kitcher in his YouTube videos.

£100, so significantly cheaper than a full MFT - but I have all the other functionality with my metrel.

 

[WorkshopChris]

Bought myself a Megger ltw325 loop tester, as demonstrated by Chris Kitcher in his YouTube videos.

£100, so significantly cheaper than a full MFT - but I have all the other functionality with my metrel.

Have you the megger guide to insulation resistance testing book?
https://www.instrumart.com/assets/Megger-Guide-to-Insulation-Testing.pdf
Well worth a read, goes into a lot of detail. I have seen a few people completely stumped when presented with a complex fault if you are only ever testing new installations and get the same results every time. It can be hard to interpret the results.
I have a cable that needs relaying at the moment as I am out of action still, the customer got someone in to find the problem.
They found the fault that was causing the 60a sub-main rcd to trip out and were going to just cut a section out and put two resin joins in and a short length of cable in.
They said the readings were a little high but should be ok.
When I got them to do a full test at 1000v and leave to soak for 5 minutes they looked at me like I was mad, but the tets proved the cable had more problems.

 

[bigegg]

https://www.instrumart.com/assets/Megger-Guide-to-Insulation-Testing.pdf
.

I've downloaded it.
Will have a look later, when I've woken up, properly.

I'll also upload it to the college tutorial group.

Thanks.