The requirement

Our client required a flexible and cost-effective test system for testing a variety of audio speakers utilised in the manufacturing of their DAB radios. They needed a test system that would allow their audio test engineers to detect and resolve defective speakers during the production process in order to increase the overall yield and reduce the cost of waste material, as well as optimising the sound quality of the finished products. The previous test system used comprised of conventional benchtop equipment such as oscilloscopes, signal generators and spectrum analysers and these were costing a lot of money to maintain and calibrate.

The solution

The Amplicon engineering team designed a bespoke test system comprising of a PXI chassis (PXIS-2508), multiple 24-bit high-performance DAQ cards (PXI-9527), and an Amplicon Ventrix 2030-E2.2 2U industrial rackmount computer. The engineering team chose the PXIS-2506 chassis as the client required a flexible, reliable and compact design. The PXI-9527 DAQ card is designed specifically for audio testing and acoustic measurement; making it a perfect solution. This card is also equipped with high resolution, dynamic signal range and flexible analogue input/output functionality, which provided the accurate frequency response measurement and detailed harmonic distortion analysis during the speaker production test. The Amplicon industrial PC was utilised for running LabVIEW application software and data storage, allowing the audio test engineers to quickly and easily verify if the audio speaker under test has passed or failed.

Results

The client was impressed with the bespoke, cost-effective test system provided by the Amplicon engineering team. They saw the costs and complications involved in configuring and calibrating a variety of bench top instruments removed without compromising the quality of their production process.

Why Amplicon?

Amplicon has a track record in supplying high quality, affordable test systems to the semiconductor industry; the Amplicon product portfolio coupled with a highly experienced engineering team assured the client that the project would meet budgetary constraints and deliver against the specification required.