当氧化锌避雷器存在内部受潮或阀片老化等缺陷时，一般通过停电用氧化锌避雷器直流参数测试仪可以检查出来。但氧化锌阀片为非线性电阻元件,有时候停电试验未必能发现问题，可在正常运行电压下不久就损坏了,导致大面积停电事故。这充分说明对氧化锌避雷器性能判断仅依赖于停电试验是不够的。因为停电试验的周期较长,氧化锌避雷器的性能变化渐变，停电测量时会受到现场因素的影响。因此，对氧化锌避雷器实行带电测试就显得非常重要。
When zinc oxide arrester has defects such as internal damp or aging of valve plate, it can be checked by DC parameter tester of zinc oxide arrester. But zinc oxide valve is a non-linear resistance element, sometimes the power failure test may not find problems, but it will be damaged soon under the normal operating voltage, resulting in a large area of power failure. This fully shows that it is not enough to judge the performance of ZnO arrester only depending on the outage test. Because of the long period of power-off test and the gradual change of performance of ZnO arrester, the measurement of power-off will be affected by field factors. Therefore, it is very important to test the zinc oxide arrester on line.
使用氧化锌避雷器带电测试仪测量时，它从氧化锌避雷器计数器取得电流信号，从pt二次抽取一个标准电压信号。通过数值分析得到全电流、阻性分量、容性分量及功耗等参数。利用这些实际测得的参数与氧化锌避雷器标准参数分析比较，以此来判断它的性能是否可以继续正常运行。带电测量比停电测量更能有效的知道氧化锌避雷器在运行中的实际工作情况。所以带电测试也是很必要的。
When the zinc oxide arrester is used for measurement, it obtains the current signal from the zinc oxide arrester counter and draws a standard voltage signal from the PT secondary. The parameters of total current, resistive component, capacitive component and power consumption are obtained by numerical analysis. By comparing the measured parameters with the standard parameters of ZnO arrester, we can judge whether its performance can continue normal operation. It is more effective to know the actual working condition of zinc oxide arrester in operation by live measurement than by power off measurement. So it's also necessary to test with electricity.