VTI Instruments Blog

You need better sensors. Why? Because a single bad sensor could cause your functional tests to fail, wasting millions of dollars if you are testing something like a missile or a jet engine in a one-shot destructive test. A failed test is not even the worst-case scenario. Imagine what is at stake if a bad sensor gives you a false positive, leading to your device failing out in the field – all of which could have been avoided by getting the right sensors.  

Functional tests are critical to product qualification, ensuring that your systems work like they are supposed to. That is why specifying better functional test equipment is key to creating better products. Without the right equipment to power your functional tests, you can’t guarantee the quality of your products, and your systems may fail unexpectedly out in the field. 

In order to create better products, you need better means of testing. From designing a new airplane engine to making updates to the defense grid, functional tests and black box testing ensure that any new products or updates meet your requirements.

Signal integrity matters. Whether you’re designing a new jet engine or building a medical-grade freezer, you need bulletproof testing to ensure that your products are up to spec. The only way to do that is through proper data acquisition systems with uncompromised signal integrity.

Senior Product Manager Chris Gibson discusses differential signaling and measurements, and more, in a joint webinar with Anritsu.

Thermocouples are without a doubt the most popular type of temperature sensor, and the VTI Instruments EX1000A Precision Voltage Measurement Instrument Series provides 48 voltage channels and supports Type J, K, T, E, S, R, B, and N thermocouples. To help you avoid some common pitfalls when making thermocouple measurements and get the most out of your instrument, we offer the following tips:

When accuracy really counts, you should make four-wire resistance measurements. Sometimes referred to as the Kelvin method, the four-wire resistance method is often used in automated test applications where long cable lengths, numerous connections, or switches exist between the digital multimeter (DMM) and the device under test (DUT).

Testing that requires the use of strain gages often consume large amounts of resources and effort to prepare for. One way to reduce the amount of time and energy spent configuring a test is to use sensors that support the Transducer Electronic Data Sheet (TEDS) interface. Many VTI measurement instruments support TEDS sensors including the EX1629 48-channel high-performance strain gage measurement instrument, EX1403 16-channel bridge/strain gage instrument, and the RX1024 24-channel bridge/strain gage instrument.

Although thermocouples are the most commonly used temperature sensor in test applications, a close second is the resistance-temperature detector, or RTD. RTDs operate on the principle that the resistivity of a metal is proportional to its temperature. The higher the temperature, the higher the resistivity.

For many test applications, measuring the temperature is a necessity. For example, when testing an aircraft engine, you may need to measure manifold temperature or the exhaust gas temperature. To help you take those measurements, VTI Instruments offers a number of options, including the EX1000A series of precision voltage measurement instruments and the RX1032 rugged thermocouple measurement system.

Thermocouples are arguably the most common type of temperature sensor, although you can also use resistance temperature detectors (RTDs), or thermistors. The EX1000A series supports all three types of sensors, while the RX1032 supports only thermocouples.