Hi zenith, welcome to the forum.
I can save you money straight away by telling you that the Megger Powersuite On-site certification software is utter pants, it must have been designed by someone in the 'Stoneage' in their software division and not an electrician who needed to use it. The bluetooth works very well with a quality dongle and laptop, but can be a bit variable with mobile phones and PDAs. The software however is clunky, not intuitive and it has a steep learning curve, so much so that Megger do a course solely for this. Even when you have done the course and climbed the learning curve it's still quicker with pen and paper. I know of 20 sparks who had it with their testers (including myself), all of which were sent on the Megger course, only 1 regularly uses it and even he's beginning to crack, enough said! So if you decide on a Megger MFT1730 buy just the MFT and NOT the more expensive MFT1730 On-site kit. Having said all that if do a search on the forum you will find that Sparks are still having problems with the MFT17xx series and despite numerous 'firmware fixes' Megger have so far failed to solve all the issues and reach a stable firmware state, but they are getting closer to realising the full potential of the testers each time. Most Sparks ditch the Megger blow-moulded case in favour of either the Fluke box or instrument case with a foam insert, as there is very little room for accessories in the Megger box.
The main irritations with the Fluke 1654B:- 1) Some Sparks find the continuity measurement sensitive and variable. 2) Both lead sets need to be nulled, this can be both a strength, any leads can be used with the tester, and it's weakness as it's easy to forget to null when changing lead sets. 3) The No-trip loop measurement uses the single pulse method and which is often swamped by noise, inhibiting the test (Error 5) and requires retesting when the noise threshold drops. 4) When the impedance of the circuit is low the No-trip loop test is quick, but it gets increasingly slower the higher the circuit impedance. There is nothing more irritating than waiting for a Zs measurement at a light fitting, holding the probes on for what seem like an age, then beep! and the display says Error 5 (excessive noise) and you have to retest and wait all over again, in a noisy industrial environment this can drive you absolutely potty. Particularly if your college is using a Megger and although all of his No-trip measurements take as long as your longest, due to the Megger multi-pulse test method, his MFT is very rarely inhibited mid-test due to excessive noise.
