The Shorts test is used to determine if any of the test points have short circuit paths to any other known nodal clusters out with its own designated node.
The Shorts Testing function uses the DMM to take ohmic readings from node to node, accumulating the nodal grounds as the test progresses, to verify that no shorts or mis-wires exist between any test points within each of the nodes to any test points within each of the another nodes. The 'accumulating nodal ground' method allows a shorts test to be performed extremely quickly by assuming that any nodal ground should not be connected to another other nodal ground. Therefore, by testing one nodal ground to another, and then tie them together and testing against the next nodal ground, is a very effective way of carrying out a shorts test.
If a shorting node condition is found in this 'accumulating' nodal method, then a Trace test should be used next to identify which two or more nodes are shorted together.
The test data is displayed in a number of formats, see Shorts Testing for more details.
Shorts Test Example
An example of a completed Shorts Test is shown below. The jade coloured TP show those TPs have passed, and the red coloured TP show a fail. However this only shows that there is a possible short within a cluster of node to another node. This fault now needs to be found and isolated using Trace Testing.
