At REDARC, we know that reliability and performance are critical to your mission which is why we take our testing seriously. To effectively evaluate the compliance and reliability of our products, REDARC has invested heavily in state-of-the-art Test & Validation Laboratories. We’re taking a deeper look inside REDARC and the different technologies that keep us at the forefront of product safety and reliability.
EMC Laboratory
The electromagnetic compatibility (EMC) Laboratory allows us to ensure that our products are compliant in terms of Radio Frequency (RF) emissions and immunity. Put simply, products are required to have low RF emissions, so they do not affect other nearby devices. Devices should also have a high level of immunity to ensure that they themselves are not affected when used in an RF rich environment, such as near mobile phones or driving by TV transmission towers.
Vibration Laboratory
Vibration testing is all about ensuring that our designs will operate and survive vibration in both on and off-road conditions. During vibration testing, we expose the products being tested to vibration and temperature extremes to simulate a lifetime of real-life conditions. We often call this ‘shake and bake’ testing.
REDARC’s Vibration Laboratory contains a Shaker/Environmental Chamber combination referred to as AGREE, (Advisory Group for the Reliability of Electronic Equipment) and a HALT Chamber (Highly Accelerated Life Testing). Vibration testing means our products are subjected to the harsh vibration and temperatures they will face when being installed in off-road vehicles and trucks to ensure they won’t fail under pressure.
AGREE testing couples a single axis electromagnetic shaker with an environmental chamber, enabling products to be subjected to accelerated vibration profiles whilst simultaneously being exposed to hot, cold and humidity environmental cycles. By exposing products to more severe levels than real life, one or two weeks of testing in the lab corresponds to many years in the field. Products are required to operate during exposure to these severe environmental conditions.
HALT testing allows our engineers to stress products to the point of failure using rapid thermal changes and random vibration. These weak points are then improved during prototyping to ensure that any weaknesses are designed out of the final product. At REDARC, building quality and reliability into our products is central to our New Product Development process.
Interesting and varied projects
REDARC’s Test & Validation Laboratories provide broad exposure to a wide range of technical areas, products, and geographical markets. This offers engineers and technicians a great opportunity to get involved in some diverse and applied testing programs. With REDARC producing products for a range of different markets, including aftermarket recreational, original equipment manufacturers and the Defence industry, each has unique compliance and testing requirements. Product testing can range from EMC, mechanical (shock and vibration), electrical functional testing, automotive transient pulse testing, and test equipment design and manufacture, including scripting for routine test automation.
Our people
The Test & Validation team have a diverse range of skills and experience, with backgrounds in electronics, engineering, mechanical engineering, industrial chemistry and EMC and compliance specialists. They have many years of combined industrial experience as well as recent graduates and students working on final year projects.
