I have been fencing for nearly 40 years, and have always done most of my own armoury. I’ve always been dissatisfied with the way that most weapon testers work. I made my first test box when I was a teenager to let me test wires and weapons. Back then, I didn’t know or really care about anything more than that the weapon was able to register hits somehow.
Later, once I got to the senior circuit I found that I was often needing to measure resistance through my kit to make sure that it was in top condition and I used a multimeter, like many of my friends at competitions. Multimeters measure resistance but struggle to spot intermittent faults, and need some technical know-how to interpret.
As the measurement of equipment at weapon control has got more prevalent, and as I start to need to make sure that I get every point I land, I’ve realised that the testers you can buy don’t quite cut it. Multimeters measure resistance but struggle to spot intermittent faults, most of the testers that you can buy for personal use don’t measure intermittent faults either and none of them measure resistance.
I’ve always been surprised that there isn’t a simple device available that’s designed to do exactly what a fencer really needs and I’ve always wanted something that can survive in my fencing bag that I could trust to help me be sure that my gear is working. I wanted to spot the faults that have caught me out at weapon control or on the piste.
That’s why I made ProTip.
