Sender: <marv@lancaironline.net> (Marvin Kaye)
To: lml
Date: Tue, 06 Aug 2002 12:45:42 -0400
Message-ID: <redirect-1683200@logan.com>
From: Brent Regan <Brent@regandesigns.com>
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Subject: CFS Environmental Video
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Aaron asks:
<<
What is the "environmental video" you mentioned in your post?  I am
installing the SFS in my IVP.>>

The Environmental Video was being shown in the CFS booth and the Lancair 
tent and shows the CFS IDU operating while alternately being drowned, 
frozen, baked, shaken, shocked and crushed. The video was shot in the 
Regan Designs' lab and no special effects were used. We really DID cook 
an egg on the case. Yummm.

A couple of interesting notes. The system was shaken in a paint shaker. 
While dramatic, a paint shaker is not nearly as brutal as the testing 
the IDU had to survive for helicopter certification. In those tests the 
system was shaken at +-10 Gs from 10 to 2000 Hz. At those levels screws 
back themselves out, connectors loose continuity and the leads on 
components fatigue and snap. Even the test limits for reciprocating 
engine aircraft of +-3 Gs will disassemble (we call it "Re-Kit") most 
consumer electronic devices.

While we were shooting the 15,000 volt lightning section we had to keep 
stopping because the lab power supplies, used to simulate the aircraft's 
power system, kept failing from stray high voltage. We ran out of power 
supplies and had to use a battery to finish the filming.

For actual compliance testing we hire a lab near Portland. One of the 
last tests was for Electro-Static Discharge (ESD) where a high voltage 
source is connected to a simulated "finger" and the device under test is 
shocked wherever the finger can reach. After the test we asked the 
technician to "finger" the exposed pins on the connectors. At first he 
refused, citing an unwillingness to do something he "knew from 
experience" would break our device. We insisted, assuring him he would 
not me held responsible. He timidly applied the first strike. Nothing 
happened. A second strike and still nothing. After about the tenth 
strike he was getting a little miffed. "There must be something wrong 
with this thing" he said gesturing to the "Finger".  Hamid then pointed 
out that the spark length was proportional to voltage and that the 
required distance was maintained. We discontinued the test after another 
couple of minutes of frantic zapping. I felt like I should console the 
technician "It's OK. You did your best.".

Even with all the protection built into the CFS IDUs there has still 
been one case, in a factory composite airplane, where a lightning strike 
caused an input protection device to fail on one of the twenty serial 
communication ports. This proves that even if you pass or exceed all the 
certification tests it is still no guarantee that Mother Nature can't 
trump your design.

Regards
Brent Regan