Novel safety tests

Specially developed electrical safety testing equipment from Clare Instruments has helped the world's largest producer of powered appliances develop a new range of electronic controlled cookers. The new Insight range of free-standing kitchen appliances from Electrolux includes an advanced design electric cooker that incorporates a number of special multifunction features based on sophisticated electronic controls and smart circuits.

To meet the product testing requirements of the new design, Clare Instruments worked with engineers at Electrolux Home Products Operations (UK) to develop special electrical test systems that were initially used in the design and development stages of the new product and have now been adapted for production line test applications.

Compared with the electrical safety testing of conventional circuits, the incorporation of sophisticated electronics in modern domestic appliances means that difficulties can be encountered during the application of typical high voltage testing.

In many cases intelligent electronic circuits can effectively control or switch the power supply to some of the internal electrical components.
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As a result, during the application of a typical flash or hipot test, some components may not be supplied with power and therefore the test will only be applied to the supply connection wiring up to the 'electronic brain'.

To help manufacturers to test modern electronic appliances in accordance with international type standards, Clare has developed a new quadrature flash test technique that successfully applies a high voltage test on all internal circuits while the product is powered up.

This technique cannot be employed using standard test equipment and for Electrolux, Clare configured a dedicated test station that was used by the company's design engineers to ensure that the new range of Insight electric cookers fully met the requirements of EN60335.

Following the successful development of the new product, the test instrumentation was then adapted for use on the company's production line, as part of a bar code controlled product test, performance and quality control system.

The test station is designed to perform a pre-programmed sequence of tests that are determined by the product's bar code.

The operator then concurrently pushes two safety switches to run the test sequence and the tests are performed automatically.