XS series operating manual 
 
XS user manual v0.55  - 134 - 
Precautions to be observed 
 
It is important to connect the specimen to be measured in taking care of the parasite leakages which 
could be created by the measurement operating procedure. 
The supplied accessories have a shielding which is connected to a guard potential, this insures a good 
immunity of the measurement regarding the parasitic leakage currents and the AC residuals. 
When using extending of the basic probes, take the necessary cares to avoid to introduce measurement 
errors (short leads, leads not touching any metallic or insulating parts,....) 
During  insulation  resistance  measurements  having  high  values  (>  100  Gohms),  the  proximity  of  the 
operator  putting  his  hand  close  to  the  specimen  under  test,  can  alter  or  make  unstable  the 
measurement.  It  is  important  to  beware of  Nylon  blouses  or  of  insulating  material  things  capable  of 
generating  by  static  electricity,  high  electrical  fields  which  can  alter  the  measurement  of  high  value 
resistances (100 Gohms under 100 VDC = 1 nA of measurement current). 
 
 
Measurements of capacitors 
 
We remind that a lot of recent electrical units are fitted with main line filters including capacitors for the 
electromagnetic  compatibility.  When  measuring  on  capacitors  it  is  advised  to  select  the  filter  mode 
CAPACITOR of the SETUP menu in order to stabilize the measured values. 
 
A) Indeed, on capacitors, the variations of the measurement power supply, even small as well as the 
interferences are entirely transmitted to the input of the current measurement system which have a 
very high gain, and therefore will amplify these variations. The CAPACITOR filter switches on circuits 
which will limit the instability of the measurement. 
 
 
B)  Never  perform  insulation  resistance  measurements  on  capacitive  specimens  in  reducing  the 
measurement voltage between each test, but always in increasing the voltage. The hysteresis and 
polarization phenomena of the dielectric material will alter the results. In that case the unit indicates its 
maximum value and takes a long time to come back to the real measured value. 
 
 
C) The insulation resistance value of a capacitor being a function following a time exponential law, it is 
important to make sense to the measured value, to indicate the duration of the measurement. The 
units of the MG series allow complying with this requirement with the built-in timer, able to measure 
times going from 1 second up to 16 minutes.  
 
 
D) Never disconnect a capacitive specimen before switching into DISCHARGE mode and waiting the 
necessary time to discharge its capacitance through the 2.2 kohms built-in resistance of the discharge 
circuit (about 1 second per 100 uF).