Need a HiPot Tester

[Noggin]

I need to obtain a hipot tester for general use. This results in me having a couple of questions. Are megohmmeters and hipot testers the same thing? I'm guessing that a hipot tester is basically a megohmmeter with additional settings so that you can shut it down if you exceed leakage current. I've used hipot testers before, but not megohmmeters. My second question is, if the megohmmeter and hipot tester are the same, and I want to use this to pre-test devices before sending them out for UL approval, do I need to get a device capable of going up to 5KV? It looks like I can get a decent 1KV unit for about $500 and a decent 5KV unit for about $1500.

 

[Reloadron]

I need to obtain a hipot tester for general use. This results in me having a couple of questions. Are megohmmeters and hipot testers the same thing? I'm guessing that a hipot tester is basically a megohmmeter with additional settings so that you can shut it down if you exceed leakage current. I've used hipot testers before, but not megohmmeters. My second question is, if the megohmmeter and hipot tester are the same, and I want to use this to pre-test devices before sending them out for UL approval, do I need to get a device capable of going up to 5KV? It looks like I can get a decent 1KV unit for about $500 and a decent 5KV unit for about $1500.

A Megohmeter (Megger) and Hi Pot are not quite the same animal. For testing purposes you can't use one for the other.

As to the Hi Pot voltage you need to determine what you want based on what product(s) you plan to test. Most Hi Pot units start as AC only but if you want DC you can have it and add to the cost much like the cost goes up for the higher voltage units. Names like Slaughter come to mind.

Today's units are nice depending on what you pay. Many are fully programmable to auto ramp the voltage with leakage set points and current limiting. We test motors and depending on the motor we use either a 10 KV unit for a 6 KV test or a large 25 KV unit for 10 KV testing. One in x number of motors is selected for destructive test where the voltage is increased till the motor totally fails.

So again, what you choose to buy is based on the testing you plan to perform.

Ron

 

[Noggin]

Maybe I can ask the client. He said that his machines are failing the hi-pot test since they spun a board. Hopefully he knows the parameters of the test.

Thanks

 

[Reloadron]

Cool, you need to find out what is failing as in what exactly. We do quite a bit of Hi Pot testing so maybe with details I can make some suggestions.

Ron

 

[Noggin]

Turns out that one of his workers set the hi-pot tester to 3700v for 3 seconds. When he set it back to 1200v for 1 second it passes again. However, he doesn't know what the current limit should be. I suggested that he should ask ETL, their test lab, since they have a good repor with them.