Contact Measurement Systems
Monitor electronic contacts during vibration or other environmental testing.
The Gnostic64 Ultra High Speed Contact Measurement Systems, available through CentraTEQ, offer a unique solution to monitoring electronic contacts during vibration or other environmental testing regimes.
The Gnostic 64 was developed by QED in response to a need within the Test and Development community to measure high speed electronic contact response to vibration and environmental testing in the laboratory. This need was originally driven by specifications within the Automotive industry but has now become a more widely specified requirement within all types of electronic equipment use.
Available as an 8 channel base system or up to 64 channels for applications requiring the monitoring of numerous electronic contacts, the Gnostic64 has established itself as the only way of reliably monitoring and measuring micro contact events during all types of vibration, environmental and endurance tests.
The system offers the flexibility of using different measurement parameters, like sample rates and trigger levels, to qualify different sorts of contacts according to different norms and standards. Interrupt times as short as 100 ns and contact resistance thresholds as low as 1 Ohm can easily be detected.
The system comes complete with its own bespoke analysis software suite to maximise the benefits of the data collected.
A PCIe card with an integrated electronically stable 100 mA current source offers many benefits. The voltage across the contact can be read directly in Ohm. The measurement signals show minimal noise and the zero voltage reference is extremely stable, required for absolute readings like resistance values.
Benefits
- Up to 64 Simultaneous measurement channels
- Independent current source per channel
- High accuracy programmable time trigger
- Up to 12.5 nano seconds time resolution
- Independent amplitude trigger for each channel
- Recording of micro interruptions for off-line analysis
- Multiple simultaneous trigger events ensure no data loss
- Signal conditioning for noise-free and reliable measurements
- Recording of the excitation frequency and temperature during test
- Recording of the contact resistance trend during the test
- Synchronisation of multiple systems
Features
Acquisition Software
There is simply no acquisition software on the market to rival this innovation. As a dedicated solution for the measurement of contact interruptions and the peerless trigger functions, this represents a genuine technological step forward. During a test, the trigger events and the measurement results (the trend and trigger events) are displayed in real time. Meanwhile, in ‘Dual Mode, two time bases are defined. One of these is for the’quick’ data acquisition of the micro contact interruptions (e.g. 40 MHz/ 25 nSec) and the other is for the’slow’ data acquisition for the recording of the trend of the contact resistance (e.g. every 5 seconds).
Analysis Software
The analysis software reads the recorded data of the micro interruptions, calculating a statistical evaluation of the interruption times for every single contact. The results are graphically presented and stored in a *.txt file that can easily be imported into Microsoft’ Excel’ for a more in-depth analysis. The analysis software empowers the user to change the amplitude trigger level, in turn providing the possibility of evaluating the data according to different norms. In addition, for each channel, the elapsed time of the first interrupt is calculated. A graphical statistical analysis of the micro interrupts according to the excitation frequency and the temperature is immediately available on the screen.
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Good Vibrations!
A detailed introduction to vibration based durability testing
Good Vibrations, available as a CD or downloadable PDF, is a detailed introduction to vibration based durability testing covering everything that both a newcomer and experienced engineer might want to know. Its available to buy from CentraTEQ.
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This paper looks at the solutions for
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