Hi,
im looking at going self employed and i want to get my PAT testing certificate and Ive found this Seaward Primetest 50 PAT tester which looks a fairly reasonable deal for the price it includes a training DVD along with an online exam and qualification but is the qualification the same one as this?
http://www.tyrotraining.co.uk/index.php/electrical/courses/pat-testing-inspection-testing-and-management/
Cheers Tom
oh an i know the basic principals of using a PAT tester as ive used a Megger for the past 2 years
the tyro training course is a City and Guilds level 3 qualification and it appears that the Seaward training is a certificate for completing an independant test set by themselves endorsed by NAPIT (The National Association of Professional Inspectors and Testers)...
Not too sure on the minimum requirements for Pat testing (I have the C&G but have been an electrician for 30 years)
There are two lads where I work who did a little one day course to use PAT tester but they really struggle with different appliances, correctly identifying type and test as they do not have the electrical experience to be sure......Make sure you have public liability insurance in case you get it wrong and hurt someone, you know what H+S are like nowadays.
what other qualifications should i get while im at it? or other kit to purchase? like the onsite guide etc? which qualification is it to sign your own work off?
tom
Bit out of date here, but once upon a time I worked for Seaward designing some of their test gear, so:
1) The IET/IEE guide is excellent.
2) No matter what various documents imply the leglislation does not specify that electrical devices need to be PAT tested (I hate that repeat testing-tested). All PAT testing does is provide evidence of care/maintenence should something go wrong.
3) (possibly out of date bit) There is no need for qualifications to do PAT tetsing, but how do you demonstrate competence without them? Your prospective customers/employers may impose a minimum qualification though.
4) Is this going to be your main line of business? If so you need to remember that your competitors will be looking at about 2 minutes per test. The bigger machines have more ability in generating high currents for the earth bond tests, which the hand held machines will struggle with (this is a bit market driven, earth bond tests tend to be lower current in IT kit, and other tests tend to cover the same ground). The point here is testing duty cycle and £ in your pocket.
5) If you are in an industry where you cannot bypass the big earth bond tests (ie non IT) then you may want to look at getting a couple of big testers, so that one can cool down whilst the other works.
6) If it is going to be your main line of work, then the device above does not seem to have anyway of downloading the results to a PC. When you do a repeat visit to a site, it will greatly speed up the tests if can import./export data on each result. This also makes H&S managers happy cos they can then look for degradation in a the results.
7) Seaward (and others) do a range of kit that will read/print bar codes. So if you return to a site, you can just read the label you prepared last time and your machine will reapeat the same suite of tests.
All in all it is a bit of a racket. H&S bods generally want a bit of paper saying that they wwill not go to jail. Testers want to get through as many tests as they can, cos they get paid per test, and generally, nothing goes wrong ....
9) I may sound a bit cynical about it being a racket, but read the IEE/IET document and the bit on the visual inspection. Now imagine yourself in a call centre crawling across the floor checking leads, looking for twisted cores, wires loose in the plug, fuse in the plug matching the rating of the appliance, then wonder how the big contractors are budgeting on about two minutes an appliance...
I'm sure more will come to me - 10 years since I was there ...and it has taken me a while to remember all this, so if some one has posted all this in the mean-time 
im not wanting to do it as a main job its just something to add to my list of qualifications infact the bit i hate most about the whole electrical thing is the testing aspect of it
All in all it is a bit of a racket.
More than a bit of a racket......often a completely meaningless, unnecessary, and expensive, waste of time.
Quite a few building contractors, and therefore as a consequence all sub-contractors who do any work for them, no matter how little, now require full PAT testing every 3 months. And it pisses me right off 
Power tools which have hardly if at all been used for 3 months, have to be retested. I don't want a high voltage sent through my 110v power tools for no reason. 110 volt possess very little risk anyway - how many people died last year as a result of electrocution from a 110 power supply ? none no doubt. Blunt circular saw blades are far more dangerous and common than the risk of a belt from your saw, but no one gives a toss about that.
Contractors have arbitrarily plucked "every 3 months" out of the blue, knowing full well that the burden of the cost won't be on them. And in the case of carpenters who have to carry a ridiculous amount of power tools, a PAT retest can cost the best part of a day's wages. All the more annoying if it includes a router which you haven't used for 6 months.
They're taking the piss, I'm telling ya 
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