The luxury of being able to do environmental testing on multiple large systems concurrently arrives at Don Alan.

You can design something as much as you want to work over a range of temperatures and humidity but the real test comes when samples are subjected to these extremes.

And there is nothing like the convenience of being able to throw the whole system (or even 5 or 6 systems to be sure) into an environmental chamber and running them through their paces.

Our new environmental chamber is massive.  It will accommodate up to 6 large 19″ rack units and subject cycle them to temperatures of -20C to + 90C and 0 to 100% RH.

When one considers that the inside of the environmental chamber has to endure the sum total of everything all of the products it is ever used to test have to endure then it is no surprise the better ones are built like battle ships.  At over half a ton it was no easy operation to get it into place – especially when it was higher than the double doors on our lab!

With this new test chamber we can test customer’s complete systems, not just our electronics – so we identify issues in connected peripherals as well.  Being easier to do testing means that more will get done – and get done early in the product cycle – reducing risk to time line and budgets.

Being able to run high humidity also means that we can do simulated life testing – better than being surprised 3 months after shipping the products!