Testing Guidelines
Are you using the wrong test method?
Just like different people have different diets, how do you know what which test method works best for your company?
Hand beeping is an important practice. Everyone in the cable/harness manufacturing business needs to have a digital multimeter and use it often. A hand tester checks the continuity of a wire. By probing both ends of a wire, you can know for sure that energy is flowing from one end to the other. Cables that contain dozens of wires can take even more time to test with a hand tester. Each wire must be tested against every other wire to check for opens, shorts and miswires. When only a single cable is built, this is a good option for testing.
If you are building more than a few of a type of cable, an automated tester is a better choice. The automated tester can check for continuity, opens, shorts, and miswires in seconds by testing all wires at once.
Here are some arguments for why automated testing is the better option:
1. Hand beeping is slow
A digital multimeter can measure the flow of electrons through the wires of a cable. However, for complex cables this practice is extremely slow. Let’s say it takes two people 30 seconds to test a circuit. Now think of the time it would take to test a cable with hundreds of circuits. Then times that by dozens of cables.
You can start to get the idea. Hand beeping can take hours of time and slow your process way down.
2. Hand beeping is less accurate
Along with being slow, hand beeping does not catch the same errors that can be found by an automated tester. A digital multimeter can only check two points at a time. There are errors a digital multimeters is not capable of finding. Hand beeping risks missing errors that could prove costly over time.
3. Hand beeping costs more in the end
Hand beeping takes hours to perform with multiple people working on the test. You may think you are saving money by not purchasing an automated tester, but add up all the hours you have to pay people to test and you may realize the amount you are actually spending.
4. Hand beeping has been replaced
The biggest reason to stop hand beeping is because new technology has replaced it. Why would you continue using an old Nokia cell phone when Smartphones are available? Use the new technology that can make testing more convenient, accurate, and faster.
If you’re just breaking into the cable testing industry, you may not know what to look for in an automated cable tester. Perhaps until now you have used a hand tester to check wire continuity. You may be considering purchasing an automated tester because you loath the time and effort it takes to check every wire against every other wire when an automated tester can perform the same test in seconds.
Whether motivated by cost, time, or another reason, switch to automated testing. Once you try it you will never go back.
Further Reading:
New to Automated Testing? Here’s What You Need to Know
4 Reasons to Bring Automated Testing Into Your Process