Apollo 600

[soltdog]

I went from the supernove to the Apollo 600. It saves so much time, plus it tests RCDs. Once you press test it takes around 10-15 seconds for the entire test sequence providing you find a decent earth point.

[southseas]

Once you press test it takes around 10-15 seconds for the entire test sequence providing you find a decent earth point

That sounds encouraging Soltdog, does that include time to print tag, or just to run the actual test sequence? How long does it generally take to print off a tag- one poster here said that he had given up on printing a tag off, and had an assistant filling then in by hand. The tag its self, would seem more expensive (factoring a thermal ribbon if that's required for location of tag), how have you found your consumables cost for the Apollo?

How have you found the reliability of the Apollo? With the SuperNova, I found I had to keep two in captivity, to be sure of being able to head off each day and complete my planned round of testing.

Thanks for your feedback.

Regards
SS

[soltdog]

That is just the time to run the sequence. When the Seaward vendor demonstrated the label printing i tried a couple of the different labels within different areas of the facotry. After a couple of weeks in the mixing area the labels had fallen off. I work for a Tyre company so we have carbon black on the go so the printed labels don't come off too well. We end up having to use scaff tags and cable ties with hand written labels. Not the best but it's what we have to use.

I had a couple of issues at the start with the 600. I did around 200 tests then when i went to use it again i got a message to say the system was corrupt. The 600 died one day so i went to charge it and i couldn't switch it back on.

The big issue i had with PAT guard 3 is that recently my database just vanished with all the 2500 assets and previous history. I sent screen shots to seaward who confirmed the problem was at my end. I was talking to a friend at another site and the same thing happened to him within a week.

[southseas]

Have you just upgraded from PG3 to PG3.2,? there seems to be a bit of an issue there, with the upgrade overwriting the database being used with the previous version.

Yeah, tyre and rubber makers are pretty dirty environments, in another life I used to be a Service Engineer for battery electric forklifts, had machines in both a tyre making/retreading plant, and a company that made a variety of rubber products- both were messy places and hard on contactors etc. Grease, hydraulic oil and carbon black, lovely stuff.

I'd be looking to knock out around 2000 tests per month, how do you think the Apollo would go on that sort of number of tests?

[soltdog]

I have had pg3 running for nearly a year. I just opened it up one day and nothing was there. I checked with our IT dept and they say it is like it has never been there. It wasn't on any backups either.

I have only done around 400 tests per month with it. I do love the fact it is more portable than the supernova. I used to struggle for some power supplies in a few areas. I don't think the supernova runs on PG3, i could be wrong. I still have mine sat as a back up.

[southseas]

I have only done around 400 tests per month with it. I do love the fact it is more portable than the supernova. I used to struggle for some power supplies in a few areas. I don't think the supernova runs on PG3, i could be wrong. I still have mine sat as a back up.

yeah, the portability aspect is certainly attractive, but doing a 25A earth bond test was a bit of a selling point between me and a sparkie using a multimeter and a megger to test appliances. As far as I am aware PG will download/upload to a SupeNova- just can't use all the functionality of PG3 if you use a Supernova.

Some of your testing is being done in a really dirty location, so the fact that your Apollo has only fallen over once is a bit reassuring, it, though it looks like owning two will be the way to go (the price of peace of mind)

Had you cleared the Apollo's memory, or where you able to reconstruct your database from that?

[soltdog]

I have had to start again I didn't have many tests stored on the 600. I think I will leave everything on the 600 in the future until it tells me to delete them to make room.

We have another factory where the same thing has happened but the computers are not on the same network. I have got our IT dept to put it on our main network now so I will have a daily back up. It is just odd that it has gone from 2 different sites within a week.

I had around 2500 assets but it is all the history that goes with it as well that is more annoying to lose.

I am going to start using an external company to do it now as I can get it a lot cheaper than if I do it. I have said that I will repair any damaged equipment.