Feature of the Month: February 2007

Considerations when selecting an environmental test chamber

When clients contact us enquiring on our extensive range of equipment we like to be able to consider all aspects of the products and the test conditions that you the client require. ETS have put together some considerations that may assist you in enabling you to decide the most appropriate chamber for your test requirements:

• What temperature will it see?


• Will humidity be a concern?


• Will it be exposed to vibration?


• Will there be temperature swings?


• Will it be exposed to salt air or corrosion?


• Will it be in a high vacuum or high pressure situation?


• Do I need combined environments?


• Does it need to be powered up?


• What is the worse case scenario? And what safety margin do I want beyond that?

• Is it a simple pass / fail test?


• Are you doing it to satisfy a customer?


• Are you following a specification?


• Are you trying to find out lifetime?


• Are you purposely taking it to a failure to find out which failures would be most likely to occur in the field? (Like HALT testing)


• Is this pre- or post-production testing?


• Are you trying to replicate field failures??

Once all the products and tests have been reviewed you are then in the position to research your chamber requirements.

At ETS we have the knowledge to advise you on the most appropriate chamber for your tests. ETS are able to supply the vast range of ACS chambers available to you at competitive prices or alternatively we may have a hire chamber available. All our hire chambers can be viewed here.