In late 2016 a customer contacted us to investigate the high failures they were experiencing on their LED indicators. The indicators were used on some of their safety critical circuity, and they had been unable to determine the root cause from the OEM or their own in house testing.
After conducting preliminary investigations we designed and built accelerated life cycle test equipment. The equipment allowed new and existing LEDs to be tested in parallel, cycling at 1Hz and with continued temperature cycling from ambient to 75℃. Using data acquisition equipment we monitored voltage, current and critical component temperature.
After the life cycle testing we were able to determine the root cause and make recommendations on other more suitable products, which were tested in parallel. The images show the original LED’s (4 left) vs the new LEDs (2 right) post accelerated lifecycle testing, as well component desoldering which was identified as the root cause.
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