Sphero, you are right on the same wavelength. UL requires us to test certain things certain ways, and some of these tests have to meet those requirements. We also test things for our internal purposes. When we can, we fudge the tests with timers, but there are situations where we are forced to operate things in a rather inconvenient way. That's why we have to press the button rather than shorting it out. A very tedious job. We have a few dozen toaster testing machines, that press the lever down, time it, count how many times they fail to latch, buzz a loud buzzer if they fail to shut off, and some other things. These things are real beuts, some of them made in the 1950's, with gearmotors and mechanical relays. Some of the cases are made of the same chrome plated steel we make toaster cases out of (we had it laying around...) so they are pretty too. Another tester is the waffle slammer. It takes a wafflebaker, opens and shuts the lid 6000 times. We sometimes take some paper and cut out teeth to mount on the lid of the wafflebaker under test, to make it look like a big lion chomping it's chops. School kids tour our lab periodically and they get a kick out of this sort of silliness. Yet another is the steam iron cord flex waggler. UL sez we have to mount the steam iron on a rotating disk, and wag it back and forth through 180 degrees with a weight hung on the cord 50,000 times. I am glad I was not around in the days when this test was done by hand. 50,000 cycles taxes the capabilities of a lot of mechanical components. I have to fix something on it every 5th or 6th test. Keep beefing everything up to industrial grade components when I have to replace anything. There are micro-switches in there that cost $25 a shot. -- Lawrence Lile Spehro Pefhany Sent by: pic microcontroller discussion list 01/02/03 11:55 AM Please respond to pic microcontroller discussion list To: PICLIST@MITVMA.MIT.EDU cc: Subject: Re: [EE]: quality servo motors? [EE] At 05:06 PM 1/2/03 +0100, you wrote: >Can't you just break open the button and shortcircuit it with a counter >and a timer? Or is it a mechanical switch, cause creating a robot for >pushing a button seems a bit senseless to me... How do you test the switch, then? We made a test setup for CSA for testing microwave ovens. It had to actually open and close the oven door xx (large number of) times to make sure the interlocks were going to be reliable over the life of the oven. Best regards, Spehro Pefhany --"it's the network..." "The Journey is the reward" speff@interlog.com Info for manufacturers: http://www.trexon.com Embedded software/hardware/analog Info for designers: http://www.speff.com -- http://www.piclist.com hint: PICList Posts must start with ONE topic: [PIC]:,[SX]:,[AVR]: ->uP ONLY! [EE]:,[OT]: ->Other [BUY]:,[AD]: ->Ads -- http://www.piclist.com hint: PICList Posts must start with ONE topic: [PIC]:,[SX]:,[AVR]: ->uP ONLY! [EE]:,[OT]: ->Other [BUY]:,[AD]: ->Ads