Bad maintenance practices tend to sneak into the way things get done. Here are three more related to “test equipment” that you should guard against.
Bad Practice #68 — Saving Money in the Maintenance Budget by Skipping the Purchase or Updating of Test Equipment Beyond DMMs and a Basic Megohmeter.
This doesn’t save money, as maintenance must pay overtime for reaction mode work that would proper testing would have prevented.
Bad Practice #69 — Using DMMS Wherever Possible, to Reduce the Need to Purchase and Maintain More Expensive Test Equipment (as a Bonus You Eliminate Costly Training!).
Use the right tool for the job. For example, there’s a big difference between an insulation resistance test at the DMM’s 9VDC level and one conducted at 1,000VAC with an insulation resistance tester.
Bad Practice #70 — Judging Power Supply Adequacy Based on DMM Voltage Readings.
DMMs are great tools, but they don’t test under the necessary conditions (reactance is different at the nominal voltage) and they don’t read the many variables a power analyzer shows you.
