Testing Cards for Manufacturing Defects

M

Thread Starter

ma7asinooo

If I'm purchasing a memory card or any electronic card for my DCS control system, how can I test this part if it is manufacture defected? can I load it for a certain time to test it or there is another way?

thanks
 
Back in college days, I had part time job at Data General testing Nova minicomputers. The diagnostic test program (loaded from paper punch tape) was referred to as the Exerciser. There were version updates as it was de-bugged and improved over time. A year or two later, I watched saw a DEC service tech run similar diagnostics during a site service call for a PDP-11.

But that was yesteryear. I doubt you'll find commercial diagnostics software for replacement DCS boards. There's shareware and freeware for Windows diagnostics for workstations but none can catch something a failed power supply.

I don't think you can do much more than install and run a board for some period of time in order to cull out the infant mortality units.
 
We had a hot spare system for the DCS consisting of;

-server
-workstation
-network
-DCS primary and backup racks
-I/O racks and cards
-I/O networks

We therefore had running known good spare cards and a place to test cards. We could install new cards, ensure that they booted up, passed diagnostics and would go online. Then they get a burn in time while in the test system.

good luck
 
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