Challenge:
Test a medical device's cable containing several groups of independently shielded two conductor cables. It is possible to miswire the shield connections so a given pair of conductors are housed in the wrong shield. The test must make sure each conductor pair is within the expected shield and the shield isolates the pair from the other conductor pairs.
Solution:
A custom script component was designed to measure the effectiveness of a shield. By specifying the shield, a wire outside the shield, and the wires inside the shield, the script component can test to make sure the wires are really inside the shield. The script calculates a "confidence factor" (0 - 100%) that is a measure of how likely it is that the wires are being correctly shielded. Short cables become difficult to test but longer cables easily produce high confidence factors when they are good.
Results:
The custom component script eliminated a costly visual examination and helped to increase throughput and quality. Cable assemblies as short as 0.5 meters were successfully tested.
