This is one of the key stages in repairing any equipment.įortunately most faults with electronics equipment such as transistor radios are relatively easy to find - many are quite obvious and some may not even need any test equipment. The first step when looking at tracing any faults and testing a transistor circuit of any sort is to look for the obvious or major faults.
High voltages can kill so be warned! Look for obvious faults Also, only the right test equipment, with the right certifications and capable of handling high voltages should be used where high voltages are present. Only qualified persons should attempt to repair mains powered equipment or equipment that contains high or hazardous voltages. Some electrical and electronics equipment may be mains powered. The test meter can be used to test these and often locate the fault very quickly.īoth analogue multimeters and digital multimeters can be used for these simple tests - the choice normally being made by what is available. However to use a multimeter to test a circuit and find faults it is necessary to have a little knowledge about the circuit, and also to adopt a logical approach in tracking down any faults that may exist.Ī little experience knowing the likely faults and failures that occur within the different types of equipment also helps. Multimeters are ideal items of test equipment for finding many faults in a transistor or other form of electronic circuit. One of the main uses for multimeters whether they are analogue multimeters or digital multimeters, DMMs is to test and fault find circuits like those in a transistor radio.
CIRCUIT BOARD TEST POINTS HOW TO
Test meter basics Analogue multimeter How does an analogue multimeter work DMM digital multimeter How a DMM works DMM accuracy & resolution How to buy best digital multimeter How to use a multimeter Voltage measurement Current measurements Resistance measurements Diode & transistor test Fault finding transistor circuits If Fine Pitch is not a concern (depending on the design), our threshold is 15 manufacturing PCB Panels.Transistor Circuit Test & Fault Finding using a Multimeter Finding faults in transistor circuits with a multimeter can be simplified by adopting a logical approach along with using some hints and tips gained from experience. There is no setup time because the machine learns the program as it operates. However, this process involves both setup time to create the fixture and additional costs associated with the cost of materials. TEST FIXTURE (BED OF NAILS)ĭebug / check for missing pins: 10 minutes The following example will clarify the difference between the two methods, as well as the cases in which one or the other might yield a more efficient PCB Assembly Process.įor this example, let’s assume there are 3,500 test points with 750 nets. Flying probe testing, as well as the costs associated with them. Sometimes customers are unclear about the difference between Fixture (Bed of Nails) vs. Our testing capabilities are listed in the following table: Testing Capabilitiesĭepending upon both the design and the cost, our testing methodology will either be:
CIRCUIT BOARD TEST POINTS SOFTWARE
The preferred netlist format is IPC-356 since all CAD software packages are capable of loading this format. For Complete PCB Assembly projects, this helps to ensure that the boards are 100% correct before any components are installed. This allows us to catch any PCB Faults introduced in the event of an error in the Gerber files. Since a CAD-based netlist is generated before PCB routing, it provides another layer of checking (against the Gerber output).
Although we create a reference netlist from the customer’s original Gerber data during PCB Fabrication, we always prefer to receive the CAD file based on the netlist for comparison. To test the PCBs, we require the NETLIST file. We either use the Bed of Nails Fixture method or the Flying Probe method to perform the testing in our circuit board manufacturing process. Bittele Electronics performs 100% electrical testing on all bare PCBs produced at its facilities as per IPC-9252 specifications.