Hot, Dead, Hot, in a box...

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Fulthrotl

Fulthrotl

~Autocorrect is My Worst Enema.~
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depending on where you work, and what kind of safety rules are in place,
when testing for voltage present, you may need to test hot, dead, hot with your
meter.... which sometimes is inconvenient, if then thing you are testing is
the only thing nearby that can be energized.

fluke, in their infinite need to sell you something, came up with a PRV240
proving unit.... runs on batteries, puts out 240 VAC or DC, when you push
test probes into recesses on the device.

http://en-us.fluke.com/products/digital-multimeters/fluke-prv240-proving-unit.html
 
Fluke has become a marketing company no doubt. Safety officers might jump all over these.

Thing is, it is a gizmo. How do you know the gizmo is working? Well you have to test your meter on a known real source, test it on the gizmo, test it again on the real source before you take the gizmo with you to the place where there is no real source.

How do you know the gizmo didn't fail during the trip? Well, you go back and test your meter on a known real source, test it on the gizmo......lather, rinse, repeat.
 
Those are called "provers" and they've been around for years; Fluke certainly didn't invent the concept.

If you don't have an energized source to test from, these can be useful, and would be far safer than someone just assuming his meter was working correctly (which is what most of us do.)
 
In the days of the "Wiggy" and Knoop tester this gadget might applied,but since Fluke T-5s type volt meters became available,loose wire probes have become a thing of the past. The Fluke meter is my go to meter about 99.9% of the time. I have owned three,still have two and gave the other on to my buddy.
 
I know it's a contentious subject, but that's why I love NCV detectors. It's very easy to do a live-dead-live test that nobody does with their DMM.
 
Working for a utility, we used a "test source" every time we tested for a de-energized medium voltage source. If the test source showed voltage, it showed that not only test source was working, but the meter as well. I guess I don't see the problem. Not always easy to find a "known source" during outages or other unusual circumstances. If your meter shows "dead" on the test source, don't believe it for anything else. Not too difficult.
 
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