Basics of Megger and How to Use it For Testing

Motors
Megohmmeter (famous as Megger*) is an electrical instrument used to measure the electrical
resistance of insulators. Very often a megger is used to check the insulation of cable jackets,
motors, and other high voltage (HV) equipment to ensure the safety of equipment.

During its working, the object under test is connected with the probes (terminals) of megger and
voltages are generated, usually, these voltages are between 1kV – 5kV. The resistance of the
object is measured, A high resistance value such as 50 MΩ or higher indicates that object is
properly insulated. A small value or zero indicates that object is not safe and it is short.

Types of Megger
1. Hand driven
2. Automatic
The hand-driven megger has a rotatory knob across which we manually generate voltages.
Internally it involves a permanent magnet generator which generates voltage ranging b/w 0.5kV
– 2.5kV. On the other hand, the automatic megger generates voltages on its own.
Ohmmeter vs Megohmmeter

The megohmmeter is actually a resistance meter, one might think why we can’t use the normal
multimeter or ohmmeter to measure the resistance. To understand this let’s consider revise the
working of the ohmmeter: It contains a 9V battery which generates electrical current and actuates
the electromechanical meter movement. While such setting works perfectly for small values of
resistance such as those of 500kΩ or 1MΩ, or even 5 MΩ, it is insufficient for creating
deflection for high values such as 50MΩ.