University Department Managers Guide to Portable Appliance Testers – where to start?
If you are a department manager at a university, the responsibility of keeping on top of testing and tagging across your department can feel like one more thing on an already long list. With a high volume of equipment spread across labs, offices, and shared spaces — not to mention a constant rotation of staff and students using that equipment — having the right setup from the start will save you a lot of headaches down the track.
For a university environment, the right starting point is a complete, fully auditable solution. The iPAT 2 SupaPAT is built exactly for this kind of setup — a touch screen PAT tester with a built-in thermal transfer printer, scanner, and everything neatly packaged together, ready to go. What sets it apart is that every tag printed shows the actual tests that were performed, making it a genuinely auditable system rather than just a compliance exercise. With a department-wide asset register to maintain, that level of detail matters.
Once you are up and running with the iPAT 2, having the right software to manage all that data is just as important as the tester itself. SimplyPATs is the go-to solution here — it allows you to download all your test results, manage your asset register across multiple sites or buildings, produce professional reports, and set reminders for upcoming retest periods. For a department that needs to demonstrate compliance across a large number of appliances, this is the piece that ties the whole system together.
When it comes to accessories, there are two you won’t want to be without. A barcode scanner makes working through a large volume of equipment significantly faster — scan the asset, test, move on. For a department with hundreds of items to get through, the time saving adds up quickly.
The other essential is a cloverleaf adapter. Universities have no shortage of laptop stations and the power supplies that come with them, and without the right adapter you simply can’t test them properly. Don’t get caught out when you’re halfway through a lab and realise you can’t test half the equipment in it.
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