Production test machines

These production line machines are ruggedised for factory floor use and generally have fixed aperture straining frames, although they can be based on 2 or 4 column classic machines for greater flexibility.

Supplied in either of two configurations:

Manually loaded test machines

Manually loaded, safety protected machines with test pieces loaded via a mechanical gate or a safety light curtain. The safety systems are generally dual circuit self-checking. These systems are for use by unskilled or semiskilled operatives in a ‘production line’ environment.

A typical system may perform a pre-conditioning operation (Scrag) followed by a static test and then dynamic tests at maybe 2 or 3 spot frequencies with a total cycle time of 10 to 12 seconds, producing Pass/Fail criteria on static stiffness, dynamic stiffness and loss angles.

Automatic loading test machines

Automatic loading, these systems are normally mounted in a production cell and pieces loaded by either robots or special designed ‘pick and place’ mechanisms.

Alpha Testing Systems have considerable experience in interfacing test machines of this type to the automatic handling systems, ensuring that the communication is problem free and passing pass/fail information back to the system to allow good parts and faulty parts to be directed to the correct destination.

Many of the system are set up to accept a range of parts with differing test procedures and pass/fail criteria the selection being made on the basis of a code passed to the machine by the automatic handling system or maybe coded on a component caddy.