Customer
Phoenix Contact GmbH & Co. KG is a worldwide leader in the development and manufacturing of electrical connection, electronic interface and industrial automation technologies.
Challenge
Phoenix Contact requires a highly flexible automated test cell capable of testing multiple products. The system must gate product flow at multiple stages, not allowing an operator to proceed with a product which has failed testing at any point.
Solution
Bloomy delivered an Automated Test System (ATS) for Phoenix Contact that provides manufacturing testing and quality control for the Foundation Fieldbus and strain gage accessory products. The system achieved the ATS goals to improve test throughput, reliability, repeatability, and quality. The new ATS also improved data management, provided a flexible test environment that reduced complexity and can easily expand test capabilities. The system consisted of the following key systems and functions:
- A single test station for hipot, functional, and thermal functional tests
- Dual bay 19” rack for test equipment and thermal functional switching
- Thermal functional fixture for testing 64 devices in a Thermotron thermal chamber
- National Instruments PXI modular instrumentation and LabVIEW and TestStand software
- Virginia Panel G12x mass interconnect with up to 18 IO blocks
- SQL Database for quality gating
- Intuitive software and hardware User Interface
- System self-test
Features
- One Operator Interface (OI) for all testing across all Devices Under Test (DUT). The OI will accept work order and product order. When a recognized product number is entered, a picture of the product is displayed and the OI will list which hardware fixtures are required and also automatically detect and proceed to the DUT loading screen when the correct hardware is installed/present.
- The ATS enforces a DUT to follow the correct path through the test process from hipot to functional to thermal functional (if required) to plastic housing packaging and finally cardboard packaging.
- Printing of failure labels with step failure information
- Interfacing with Phoenix Contact product labeling system for printing of product box labels
- Automatic test start upon detecting the following:
- Lid closed
- DUT present
- Correct barcode serial range
- Production statistics reporting provides remote networked database access for operators, floor managers and upper management inspection and early detection of any process control issues
- Test System self test to diagnose system faults provides operational assurance and performance of the overall test system. 3 test fixtures provide test capability for 7 different DUTs. The fixtures provide the interconnections and custom PCB interface required for each individual DUT.
- Closed loop automatic tuning of 4 DUT mounted potentiometers using two axis of motion and a stepper motor to calibrate product
- Automatic color, intensity, and frequency tests of DUT LEDs with fiber optic sensors
- Run multiple tests in parallel; System can run both a hipot test and a functional test simultaneously.
- Safety rated interlocks provide independent safety for the two test-beds (hipot and functional)
- DUTs are uniquely identified by scanners housed in the test fixture, eliminating the need for operator to manually scan the units.
Results
Bloomy's custom Automated Test System allowed Phoenix Contact to increase productivity and product throughput while enforcing proper quality gating and quality control. The data collection and statistics monitoring allows them to continually improve the manufacture of product. The test system flexibility and expandability will allow for future product test and increase volume of production.