Documente Academic
Documente Profesional
Documente Cultură
Title
Environmental Test Procedures
Theme Planning a test
Test methods are very different whether the specimen involved is a part, or entire
equipment. Even if IEC standards’ tests recommend reproducing faithfully environment
conditions to evaluate equipments, or parts, confirming these conditions are faithful to
the reality is a difficult matter to address. In general, at design stage, environmental
conditions in which the parts will be used are not known. Even when assuming usage
conditions, it is possible that environment conditions are different, or such as we
haven’t thought about.
When a product enters into production, a purpose usage and estimate service life is
usually determined, and it is necessary to plan a test to assess these. It is difficult but
necessary to gather data, and endeavor to understand the conditions endured by the
equipment. After understanding the conditions, and considering the conditions’
differences along with the room temperature, etc., the test conditions can be determined.
The optimum tests conditions are determined regarding the category of product, taking
into consideration and balancing several parameters, such as the product
characteristics, test purpose, allowed test duration and available test equipments.
Start Goal
Test Equip Data
Test Evalu Inspec
conditi ment analys Report
planning ation tion
ons choice is
Test planning/ preparation Carrying test Data analysis/ Report release
Understand market failure effects Main test/ Daily control Failure analysis
1
Copyright© ESPEC CORP. All rights reserved. Test Navi [Test Handbook]
Getting the best out of your chamber ESPEC CORP.
Title
Environmental Testing: Notes
Theme Points regarding test preparation work
1 Water for Humidifier water is pure water (deionized watee, between 0.1 and 10μS/cm). Using tap
humidity test water or other non-pure water leads to test results’ discrepancies, damage to the
equipment, and can cause test area contamination and humidifier early failures.
2 Wet-bulb wick In principle, the wet-bulb wick should be changed before a test. If the wick becomes
replacement dirty, the humidity measurement can take between 5 to 10% margin of error. Even if it
does not LOOK dirty, it is possible the wick is soiled after use anyway, therefore it is
3 Management of Check the test area for VOCs (oils, gases) and assess impact level. Vinyl chloride
contaminant contained on cable coatings etc. generate contaminants at high temperature. In that
4 Choice of the Great volumes shall be selected for large or numorous specimens, however,
equipment temperature, humidity fluctuation may increase in such spaces. Therefore, airflow
volume circulation, specimen weight, size, but also positionig shall be considered as well.
6 Fixation of Tightly fix cables and specimens. During testing, vibration, shocks
specimen etc. can make the specimen or cables move, resulting in
disconnection, mechanical stress, bad insulation etc.
2
Copyright© ESPEC CORP. All rights reserved. Test Navi [Test Handbook]
Getting the best out of your chamber ESPEC CORP.
Title
Environmental Testing: Notes
Theme Points regarding test preparation work
8 Specimen basket The specimen is put in a metal basket, or any other non
corrosive material, so that water can notaccumulate.
11 Voltage impression Electric plug outlet is necessary to avoid electric shocks during
load bias.
14 Change of the test It is necessary to change regularly IC sockets and test boards.
board (Deterioration)
3
Copyright© ESPEC CORP. All rights reserved. Test Navi [Test Handbook]
Getting the best out of your chamber ESPEC CORP.
Title
Environmental Testing: Notes
Theme Points regarding test preparation work
16 Temperature set Temperature should be set such as not exceeding the glass
conditions transition temperature (Tg) of resin materials.
4
Copyright© ESPEC CORP. All rights reserved. Test Navi [Test Handbook]
Getting the best out of your chamber ESPEC CORP.
Title
Environmental Testing: Notes
Theme
When specimens are available in quantity, it is possible to apply various tests, even
destructive tests, however, not so much when only a small quantity is available. In that
case, evaluation is conducted following a procedure for stress application; however, if
the sequence order changes, the result will be different. For this reason, it is necessary
to plan testing according to a test sequence.
The purpose is to understand the failure Used generally to determine the prototype
trend at first stage of the test sequence. performances.
However, if the specimen cannot handle such
condition, this test shall be moved to the end
of the sequence.
(c) Test which has the greatest effects. Test to certify standardized product.
The damage that occurs because of a past For equipment and parts.
examination might be reproduced as an
effect.
5
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Getting the best out of your chamber ESPEC CORP.
Title
Environmental Testing: Notes
Theme
can be clearly appreciated. As the purpose (Source: JIS C 60068-1 Environmental testing
6
Copyright© ESPEC CORP. All rights reserved. Test Navi [Test Handbook]
Getting the best out of your chamber ESPEC CORP.
Title
Environmental Testing: Notes
Theme
The number of specimens tested will depend on the purpose of the test. When the
product tested requests a defective ratio on the mass-produced goods quantities, the
relation between the number of breakdowns and number of specimens (defective ratio)
can be determined using the traditional method of “OC curve” (please refer to table 6).
Japan JUSE)
In case of a prototype, most of the time the prupose is an estimation of service life, and
clarification of failure mechanisms; in this case, the average service life of the
equipment shall be set up from a Weibull analysis or similar. There are few documents
allowing to determine the number of necessary specimens clearly; however, comparison
by experience can help finding the appropriate quantity. The recommended number of
specimens according to the purpose of test are presented on the Table 7 (for reference).
7
Copyright© ESPEC CORP. All rights reserved. Test Navi [Test Handbook]
Getting the best out of your chamber ESPEC CORP.
Title
Environmental Testing: Notes
Theme
Section Idea
8
Copyright© ESPEC CORP. All rights reserved. Test Navi [Test Handbook]
Getting the best out of your chamber ESPEC CORP.
Title
Environmental Testing: Specimens’ layout
Theme Basic characteristics of air circulation
When testing a large amount of specimens, it is necessary to arrange them in the test
area so as to keep a good ventilation.
Besides, loading large amount of specimens, or specimens generating heat load, has a
great impact on the temperature uniformity performance, therefore it is necessary to
pay attention not to generate gaps between test results.
When placing lots of specimen, follow the drawings below so as not to prevent air
circulation to reach the lowest shelf.
When placing specimen generating heat load, it can be admitted that temperature rises
at downstream because of heat load; therefore, specimen arrangement should be
avoided on test area downstream.
According to the standard IEC 60068-3-5, the test area usable dimensions is a cube at
1/10 from the wall on all sides (however, smallest is set to 50mm, largest 150mm).
Ideally, arranging the specimens within this area reduces test errors.
9
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