An arc protection device has been applied and verified in a substation. The in-field inspection and verification of the arc protection device lack test equipment. In order to test the performance of the arc protection device, a portable electric arc light protection tester is designed. It mainly includes the main control unit, inverter module, light source generator, switch quantity detection module, management software and so on. These can realize the quantitative linkage output of arc intensity and current amplitude, and measure the protection operation time accurately. The test process and result of the function test show that the portable arc light protection tester can meet the verification requirements of relevant standards for the main technical performance of an arc light protection device. This work is supported by Science and Technology Special Fund of State Grid Corporation of China (No. 52182017001C) and Governmental Science and Technology Fund of Jiangxi Province (No. 20192BBE50007).