How to Test Surge Protector with Multimeter

How to Test Surge Protector with Multimeter

Created by: Glen Zhu | Updated Date: January 16th, 2025

Test Surge Protector with Multimeter

When there is no professional surge protector testing equipment, some people want to use a multimeter for testing. It should be noted that the core component of a surge protector is MOV (metal oxide varistor), a nonlinear and high-impedance device.

Let’s take type 2 surge protector device (SPD) SLP40-275/3S+1 for example, to check the MOV module of SLP40-275/0.

How to Test Surge Protector with Multimeter

Test Surge Protector with Multimeter at ‘mV (DC)’ position

Turn the function dial to the ‘mV (DC)’ position, connect the test leads with ‘L’ and ‘N’, the screen displays 0. See the image as below:

Test Surge Protector with Multimeter at ‘Ω’ position

Turn the function dial to the ‘Ω’ position, connect the test leads with ‘L’ and ‘N’, the screen displays none. See the image as below:

Note: MOV is high-impedance component, so there is no any indiation when turn the function dial of multimeter to the ‘Ω’ position to test.

Test Surge Protector with Multimeter at ‘mA (DC)’ position

Turn the function dial to the ‘mA (DC)’ position, connect the test leads with ‘L’ and ‘N’, the screen displays 0. See the image as below:

Result

The Metal Oxide Varistor (MOV) is in a high-resistance state, using a multimeter to measure resistance can not distinguish whether the surge protector device is damaged or not.

We recommended to use a professional surge protector test equipment for detection, details please visit this page https://lsp.global/how-to-check-surge-protection-device/

Those are articles written with AI tools by people who don’t understand surge protector device, and have not been actually operated or verified. So what the Internet says about measuring surge protection device with multimeters is false.

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