[quote name='Oxblood' post='53634' date='Aug 31 2007, 11:01 PM']Sorry to go off on a bit of a tangent here, but I'd like to relate my own little PAT testing story.
For many years, my partner ran the Wardrobe dept that served the Theatre Design courses at a major London college of Art. In the years before PAT testing entered our lives, during each summer break all the workshop machines were checked for electrical safety by the college's own qualified electricians, and as a result there were never any incidents involving electrical safety issues.
Then the whole PAT testing thing arrived, and the college authorities paid outside companies to come in and provide the necessary certification tests. In the first week of the new academic year, my partner sat down to use one of the industrial sewing machines. The moment she turned on the motor, it cut out. "Strange," she thought. "...it was working perfectly well when we last used it, and it now has a PAT test certificate proving that it's OK."
Before deciding to report it as faulty, she asked me if I would pop in and give it a quick look-over, just in case she'd missed anything obvious. At first I couldn't find anything amiss either - until I checked the fuse in its plug.
An industrial sewing machine has a large, powerful motor. Once it is up to normal running speed, it draws 2 Amps. However, like all motors, when it is first switched on it draws a very large inrush current for a fraction of a second. For this reason, all such motorised machines should be fitted with an over-rated fuse to cope with the inrush current. The PAT testing 'expert', whose services had been bought in at considerable expense, having read the "2 Amps" rating printed on the side of the motor, had removed the 13 Amp fuse from the plug and replaced it with a 2 Amp fuse!
He had been trained to follow a set of basic procedures using a PAT testing machine, but beyond that, he had no electrical qualifications at all, and not the first idea about how electricity actually works.
In the end, the department's own Stage Management crew, who were properly qualified, had to go round and double-check every piece of gear in the place.
Moral: Unless it is undertaken by a fully qualified electrician, PAT testing is no more than a bureaucratic box-ticking exercise.[/quote]
Reminds me of Brazil.