Electrical

Electrical service technicians and maintenance personnel use a great variety of test equipment to troubleshoot problems or to provide preventive maintenance of facilities. In their daily tasks they need to make sure electrical circuits are intact and safe to use, and that all equipment connected to them runs properly.

Electricians check breaker panels for bad fuses or ailing breakers, check circuits for faults such as opens and shorts, verify if motors run properly, record and datalog power use, check buildings and equipment for proper grounding, and are involved in a myriad of other tasks.

How do they manage all of those tasks successfully and efficiently? They use testers and meters to help them optimize their job requirements and performance. Here is a short list of testing instruments they use: Voltage contact and non-contact probes, clamp meters, multimeters, IR thermometers, circuit breaker finders, circuit testers, wire tracers, megohmmeters, ground resistance testers, power energy loggers, power quality analyzers, and thermal imaging cameras.

Since they use so many different meters and work with energized circuits, they have to go through training, product updates, and regulation updates throughout their careers. Their work is demanding but each time they correct a problem or find an issue before it becomes a serious problem, their job satisfaction increases.