testing

This year marks not only the title anniversary, but arguably also that of the beginning of the modern era in vehicle electromagnetic interference (EMI) testing. Radiated emission (RE) testing of equipment to be used on self-contained vehicles is performed at one meter or less versus testing at a distance of three meters or more for equipment designed for use in homes, offices and factories.

Mention the word “environment” to most people and they think of air pollution, soot, contaminated beaches, etc. Those certainly are problems we must all consider, but I’m using the word “environment” differently here.

Cascade TEK has announced its Colorado Lab now offers HALT/HASS testing. The HALT (Highly Accelerated Life Test) and HASS (Highly Accelerated Stress Screen) testing methods are an excellent tool to quickly uncover latent weaknesses in a product, by putting products through random vibration combined with very rapid temperature transitions – subjecting the product to increasing amounts of stress and fatigue.

Thermal testing, also known as heat testing, is one of the most critical tests required by the majority of regulatory safety standards in determining the safety of a product.
Excessive heat is the number one enemy in any electrical or electronic circuit. Designers are perpetually trying to improve the way to reduce heat or partially cool their products because they are being asked to design products with higher power density into smaller sizes, while operating temperatures of components or devices have not changed greatly over the past few decades. This means that component temperatures must be well controlled to avoid any failure and to increase the reliability of the product.

From the time when automotive vehicles were essentially mechanical with spark ignition the only electrical system, through the many decades that brought the development of electrical, electronic and computer controlled automotive systems, the need for and methods of automotive testing have evolved along with the vehicles. At one time, electrical testing was sufficient. But with the dawn of the digital computer era, compatibility became a major issue. Those pesky clocked systems are inherently noise producers and are also subject to immunity issues.