Test jigs , simulators or whatever you want to call em.

[pickle9000]

So I am new here (first post) I do not have an EE degree, I'm retired after a long career in the repair industry. It was all commercial / industrial stuff. Primary focus was in the railway industry.

So to the point, test jigs, in my business where a massive benefit. They increased quality and helped prevent technician mistakes. I always made two styles, one for diagnostics the other for burn in. One way to lose a customer is to send them faulty gear. While a temp probe needs no burn in, a sequencer for a piece of heavy equipment or a temp controller for a deep fryer does. Most important is to generate errors and check if all the safety features working.

Of course for me this was exclusively for repair purposes. I would think that for design it would be equally critical.

I'd like to see your take on this one Dave.

...mike

[McMonster]

Dave did something like this in #216, but I'd like to see more too.

[pickle9000]

Yea, 216 was the resistor probe one. Simple and effective. I have no problem with hand testing as long as it pays. That said, test jigs and automated sims are available to heavy equipment mechanics in the railway industry. They are used to get the equipment up and running as fast as possible.

I've seen ones supplied by the manufacturers and some are simple, plug in a hand controller and make the lights go on and off. They range all the way up to very computerized systems. Often built into the on board controls if it's computerized. When you consider price these things can be killers. 

...mike 

[vk6zgo]

They usually do "pretend"ones on a computer & hope for the best,these days!

VK6ZGO

[pickle9000]

It would be very interesting to see failure rates for "out of the box" items.

I remember one customer sending us a dozen boards that where DOA. He sent them to us instead of returning them to the OEM because he needed them running and couldn't wait for the OEM turn around. Turned out to be a transistor with the base and emitter swapped (kinda sad). Now it showed up on our test jig immediately, what about the OEM? I still have no idea what happened. On a brighter note I made a customer very and he showed his appreciation by sending in more items for repair.

...mike