Without a sensor, how would you really know if there’s a tempest in your teapot? Similarly, do you know the airflow in your VME chassis or temperature in your ATR box? Advanced Thermal Solutions (ATS) hopes to solve this dilemma for test engineers via ATS’s turnkey iTHERM-100 Test Station. The station consists of laboratory instruments and sensors designed to study precise airflow, velocity, and temperature on boards and heat sinks and in racks and chassis.
Included are a benchtop, laboratory-grade wind tunnel, an automated controller, and multiple sensors (see center of photo) that aid in precisely managing velocity airflow direction within the test environment. As configured, airflow can be characterized and pressure drop measured over components and heat sinks. Adding a thermocouple allows temperature measurements on individual devices. Individual portions of the test station can be reconfigured for individual use, separately from the manufacturer’s system setup.
