Hi group, here is a short story for you this morning: My trusty QL is controlling a test setup built to qualify a new component for space use as we speak.
To make the story short, I work for a company that build satellite and other space hardware. Two weeks ago, one of our design failed during an official life test in the lab. We made some changes to the design and we are about to restart the test soon. But I found out that changing the material of the failed part for a different type might be an even better solution. After talking to my boss, he said that we have no time to qualify that new material before the official test. His other objection was that a new test setup was needed to mechanically bend the part made of the new material for many thousand cycles before he would even consider it. There was no time, and no money. You need to understand that a setup like that usually cost a few $10000 and take about a month to built, program the test computer etc. The day after I told my boss: I WILL test this solution. Give me 24 hours to built the test setup, and it will cost you nothing. I agreed with a smile. 24 hours later, the test was running. I use scrap flight parts, a couple of brackets and a lot of Meccano parts. For the actuator, I use a small $20 servo-motor that I had for a robotic project of mine. I also had the controller for the servo. This controller can be attached to a simple serial port. That is where the QL comes into play. I needed a computer to control the amount of bending, the timing, the large quantity of cycles and able to log everything. I also needed a computer that was easy to program, as I started to work on the program at 23h00. Because the QL is the computer I know best, the program was finished 2 hours later. The next day, when I installed everything in the thermal chamber, I must admit that it looks a bit foolish. But it did work. I closed the door and set the temperature to -50degC. Everybody knew it would not last through the night. But this morning I opened the chamber and it was still running great, 25000 cycles later. When I left work it was at 40000 cycles. Anyway, It is fun to see my QL in a lab running this test, and I thought you might like it. The other thing that I like is that I can work on my 3D game at lunch time :-) Have a nice day! François _______________________________________________ QL-Users Mailing List http://www.q-v-d.demon.co.uk/smsqe.htm
