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Dave Plowman (News) Dave Plowman (News) is offline
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Default Live or neutral?

In article ,
Unclebill wrote:

Dave Plowman (News);1815186 Wrote:
In article ,
Unclebill
wrote:-
I bought a multimeter, checked that the conduit really is a good
earth
and found out which cable was which.-

How did you do this with a multi-meter?


I followed the advice received from another well known forum :-


"Not much can be done without a meter. For a simple voltage test like
this, one of the 10 quid argos digital multimeters would be
sufficient.


Then it's poor advice for checking an earth. Digital multimeters draw very
little current and a poor earth with a high resistance - and this is
exactly what can happen with conduit - will show up as 'normal' with one.

You could also use a test lamp, but this would not give an accurate
result of whether or not the steel conduit was properly earthed"


In actual fact the reverse. A test lamp will draw some current and is
better than a simple volt meter. But the correct tester will draw a very
high current for an instant thus checking the earth is doing its job
correctly - ie capable of drawing enough current in event of a fault to
trip the circuit protector within the design time.

--
*What am I? Flypaper for freaks!?

Dave Plowman
London SW
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