Jeff, We're in the lighting controls game and subject a percentage of all our products to a "burn in" or, to use a better term, "stress screening" test. For us it is our primary source of reliability information. It's function in terms of catching systemtic problems in manufacture is secondary (99% of those should be picked up at MDA and functional testing) We do not test 100% - we start at 20% and reduce it as historical data indicates is reasonable (for some products (for which we have a lot of data), we are only screening 3%). As for temperature, we aim to get as close as possible to (but not exceed) maximum operating temperature of the product. Our test duration is typically 48 hours. So, yep, I think it certainly has a place, but regular assessment to ensure it is still providing useful information is not such a bad thing either. I guess it depends on the product and Class, but "burning in" or "screening" 100% sounds excessive to someone producing Class 2 - you could probably reduce the percentage greatly without a huge drop in data quality. Richard van Beveren NEWTRONICS PTY LTD -----Original Message----- From: Landes, Jeff [mailto:[log in to unmask]] Sent: Tuesday, 9 April 2002 06:46 To: [log in to unmask] Subject: [TN] Powered up burn- in test Hi all, Historically we've subjected our units to a "power on" 11hr "burn-in" at 125F (prior to final testing). This burn-in costs very little to perform, since a hot room is already set up. There has been talk of discontinuing this practice -- In fact the subject comes up at least once a year. Question.... Is it not just good practice to have a unit powered up for a period of time before shipping it to an end user? Otherwise it has only a minute, or so, of history (during test) under power. Is it not "better than nothing"? Any feedback would be appreciated. What are others doing out there? Jeff ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ----- Technet Mail List provided as a free service by IPC using LISTSERV 1.8d To unsubscribe, send a message to [log in to unmask] with following text in the BODY (NOT the subject field): SIGNOFF Technet To temporarily halt delivery of Technet send e-mail to [log in to unmask]: SET Technet NOMAIL To receive ONE mailing per day of all the posts: send e-mail to [log in to unmask]: SET Technet Digest Search archives at previous postings http://listserv.ipc.org/scripts/wa.exe?S1=technet Please visit IPC web site http://www.ipc.org/html/forum.htm for additional information, or contact Keach Sasamori at [log in to unmask] or 847-509-9700 ext.5315 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ----- --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Technet Mail List provided as a free service by IPC using LISTSERV 1.8d To unsubscribe, send a message to [log in to unmask] with following text in the BODY (NOT the subject field): SIGNOFF Technet To temporarily halt delivery of Technet send e-mail to [log in to unmask]: SET Technet NOMAIL To receive ONE mailing per day of all the posts: send e-mail to [log in to unmask]: SET Technet Digest Search the archives of previous posts at: http://listserv.ipc.org/scripts/wa.exe?S1=technet Please visit IPC web site http://www.ipc.org/html/forum.htm for additional information, or contact Keach Sasamori at [log in to unmask] or 847-509-9700 ext.5315 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------