I can't resist getting in on this one. In a previous life, I worked for a laboratory in Canada (who will remain nameless to protect the innocent, and those of you who might know who I might be talking about, please keep it to yourself). We did some pretty interesting stuff there. Here are just a few examples: 1) Manual automotive jacks, the straight ones that used to hook into the bumper. Had to pour a couple of 4000 pound blocks of concrete and set them on a custom built "A", the top of the "A" was hinged to the floor, the other end was the end lifted. I remember one of our engineers had to crank the 8 models of jacks up and down about 250 cycles each. If that wasn't bad enough, some of the jacks were over six feet in height, can you imagine a thin jack with a load of over 8000 pounds on it at a height of six feet. I remember the jack bowing quite badly, but meeting the performance spec. We then had to add lead blocks until the units failed. Spectacular. One time while the engineer was using a 20 foot long bar to pump the lever on the jack, his grip slipped and the bar flew up, broke off of the jack, sailed through the air, breaking fluorescent fixtures as it went, and smashed through one of the warehouse windows. 2) Fireplace insert failure. After a catastrophic failure, the two story wooden test jig inside the warehouse caught on fire. Scrambling for hoses and extinguishers. 3) Gas fireplace vent flap failure test. We simulated what would happen in the case where gas was being pumped into the fireplace, the igniter was taking it's sweet time, AND the vent flap for the explosion failed. These were a blast (pun intended). As the units got larger, the blasts got stronger. These tests were conducted after hours because of the danger associated with the catastrophic failure. We had one inch acrylic screens with holes in them from shrapnel. One time, I remember the blocks all the way around the test room (a cinder block room with relief venting) door being pushed out two inches because the blast was so strong and the venting wasn't sufficient any more for the sizes of fireplaces being tested, we reengineered the entire room for larger blasts. 4) My personal favorite. Building curtain wall testing. Outside behind the warehouse we had a three story structure to attach the curtain wall (glass enclosure system on large office buildings which just attaches to the steel and concrete from of the building) to, the structure was made air tight so that we could create a vacuum inside of the test jig to test for pressure changes and water leaks. The rig in front of the curtain wall was a rain curtain to simulate rain, and a DC3 engine (if memory serves me) mounted to an A frame directly in front of the structure but behind the rain curtain. We would fire up the DC3 and get about a 140 mile an hour wind going. It was an awesome noisy site to behold. Anyway, those are just a few of what this biz has to offer. I am sure there are many extremely interesting stories out there. Someone should write a book on them. Best regards, Garry Hojan VP-West/ Director of Telecom TUV America Inc. Product Service, Management Service, Industry Service, Automotive, BABT P: 408-919-3759 F: 408-919-0585 C: 408-373-7475 http://www.tuvamerica.com/ <http://www.tuvamerica.com/> View our seminars online at http://www.tuvamerica.com/seminars <http://www.tuvamerica.com/seminars> View our online newsletter at http://www.tuvamerica.com/newsletters <http://www.tuvamerica.com/newsletters> Opinions expressed in this forum are not of TUV America but are my own personal opinions. -----Original Message----- From: Dave Lorusso [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Tuesday, May 07, 2002 7:30 AM To: 'Robert Wilson' Cc: [email protected] Subject: RE: What Every Startup Needs to Know About NEBS I showed a film clip of failing the fire resistance test at the last Verizon NEBS Symposium ( www.verizonnebs.com <http://www.verizonnebs.com/> ), you're right, it was a big hit. Before I showed it, I asked the audience "How many of you played with fire when you were a kid?". At least 2/3 of the audience raised their hands. Not too surprising from a group of compliance professionals who burn stuff for a living. The fire resistance test is definitely my all time favorite compliance test - the seismic test is a close second. Best regards, Dave -----Original Message----- From: Robert Wilson [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Monday, May 06, 2002 7:38 PM To: [email protected] Subject: RE: What Every Startup Needs to Know About NEBS You never showed photos of the NEBS flame test! Nothing like burning your equipment to a crisp with a 1 foot high flame from a line burner, for good entertainment :) Bob Wilson TIR Systems Ltd. Vancouver. -----Original Message----- From: Dave Lorusso [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: May 6, 2002 3:11 PM To: '[email protected]' Cc: '[email protected]'; '[email protected]' Subject: What Every Startup Needs to Know About NEBS FYI, I just had an article published in Evaluation Engineering magazine titled: "What Every Startup Needs to Know About NEBS". You can view it at: http://www.evaluationengineering.com/archive/articles/0502emc.htm <http://www.evaluationengineering.com/archive/articles/0502emc.htm> The article details the steps we took at General Bandwidth to pass NEBS testing our first time out. There's a pretty good resource section at the end that's not in the print copy. I hope the group finds it useful. Best regards,
Dave Lorusso Director of Product Integrity General Bandwidth, Inc. 12303 Technology Blvd. Austin, TX 78727 512-681-5480 (phone) 512-681-5481 (fax) [email protected] <mailto:[email protected]> www.genband.com <http://www.genband.com/>
