DEFA car engine heater EOL test

DSE was requested to make a turnkey test solution for DEFA car engine heater with focus on automatic operation and operator safety.
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Test system to secure the high quality of DEFA products 

DEFA Test SystemDEFA is a market leading company within car engine heaters and has many years of experience with innovative development and production of quality products. For a new generation of car engine heaters, DEFA decided to partner up with DSE for the development and manufacturing of a turnkey End-of-line test solution, to ensure a high quality of their product.

Based on DEFA test specifications, DSE made idea-presentations for the mechanical design of the testsystem. Through a close creative dialogue the design ideas was visualized in 3D, to find the optimal solution for testing the DUT (heated up to 200° C). The main focus was product quality, operator saftety & production cost.

DSE delivered the turnkey test system complete incl. CE certificate.

Agnar Kopperud, R&D Director at DEFA says:

” DSE offers a turnkey test solution to DEFA as a one-point-of-contact for the testsystem including fixture, measurement instruments, controller, testsoftware, rack, wiring and documentation. This allows DEFA to use our resources and focus on ”what we do best” - innovation, development and manufacturing of new products to the car industry”  

Advanced hardware/mechanical design of fixture

The DUT / heater element is cooled down by a customized water cooled fixture. The fixture-control includes IR temperature reading of the DUT, supply voltage read back and controlling lock/unlock of operator protection.

To protect the operator from High Voltage and heated DUT during the test, following hardware safety precautions was implemented:

  •  A safety-lid protects the operator from any contact with the DUT / Fixture.
  •  A safety-switch with lock-function is connected via a safety-relay to ensure, that the lid is locket during  test."
  •  The safety-relay is connected to an interlock switch on the HiPOT safety-tester and the temperature of the   DUT is monitored to ensure safe operation.Water cooled fixture
  •  Automatic fixture with pneumatic operation of the lid and automatic slide-in connection to the DUT.

Testprogramming based on LabVIEW and cDAQ controller

The testprogramming is based on National Instruments LabVIEW and cDAQ controller. LabVIEW is a well-defined and documented "market standard" for testprogramming, and will make service & maintaince, upgrades and future configuration of product parameters significant easier.

Based on DEFA requirements DSE implemented the testsequences, Grafic User Interface, Fixture control, testdata-log and a ”plug-and-play” driver for barcode-reader & labelprinter. 

The test system can be serviced/supported via remote connection. 

Key features:

  •  Generic modular test platform based on standard elements.
  •  Can be used for future multiple test lines or expanding/changes of the test-specifications.
  •  Safe, easy and fast test operation.
  •  Easy and fast maintenance of the test system.

Download the case here

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