30 January 2002Manufacturing / Production Technology, Hardware & Services
The Joker 500 is an instrument from Test and Rework Solutions that has been designed while keeping in mind the needs of the technician during the repair process of a defective board. In general, the repair process is a loop within the final test procedure.
When a fault is detected the test system indicates the failure mode and the assembly is passed to the repair section for corrective action. The reasons for reject are mainly short circuits and defective or wrong components. When the repair operator receives a board, he needs a quick means to resolve these problems. The Joker 500 has four main application areas: short circuit localisation; component testing; multimeter functions; insulation resistance test.
For short circuit localisation three methods are used to precisely locate the short: Magnetic mode stimulates the shorted tracks with AC while the current flow is detected using a probe which captures the magnetic flux. The operator can follow the current path and arrive at the point where the current passes from one track to the other - the short circuit point. The resistive mode is based on the measured resistance between shorted tracks. Once the operator knows which are shorted tracks, two probes are randomly placed on each shorted track and then moved looking to minimise the resistance. The multilayer mode is useful to locate shorts on different planes of multilayer PCBs. This more sophisticated test method has two current generators connected to the four corners (on the same plane) of the board. A fifth test clip is put on a random point on the other shorted layer. The LCD display of the Joker has an arrow that indicates to the user in which direction the probe has to go and the distance from the short-circuit. The region of the short - less than 1 cm - is located, then by resistive mode the exact point may be located.
The second most common group of failures identified by automatic test systems are incorrect or faulty component placements. The Joker can test and verify components, resistors, capacitors and Zener diodes (up to 250 V) It operates at a lower 0,3 V to prevent damage to current low voltage components. The instrument can also inject very 'soft' currents and since it is current-programmable it can be used to simulate an MDA with currents as low as 10 µA, but also up to 160 mA, to verify power diodes etc.
A standard 5 1/2 digit multimeter is incorporated within the Joker, and for high voltage insulation testing, a fully programmable voltage of up to 250 V d.c. is available permitting measurements with its megohmmeter in excess of 1000 MOhm.
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