Life Cycle Testing

It’s no accident that IDI spring contact probe life is the longest in the industry. Life testing is a critical our test lab. Testing the performance of a probe for a few cycles demonstrates only the “new” performance of the probe. We must cycle, measure and document the performance of our products through their expected life. To measure this, we have designed and built multiple testers to test in a variety of mechanical and environ-mental conditions.

Traditional Life Cycle Test System

You’ve come to trust us for first-cycle, every-cycle contact. In our quest to meet this expectation, our traditional life cycle test system holds up to 128 probes with IDI receptacles or a fixture against a bed of gold plated solid pins. The probes are cycled against a high conductivity copper plate that is plated with silver and gold. The 4-wire resistance is measured, recorded and the probes are automatically checked for loss of stroke at programmable intervals throughout the test. The measured data is analyzed at the completion of the test. The same traditional life cycle testing can be performed at temperatures ranging from -70°C. to 177°C. The probes are cycled then automatically measured for loss of stroke and resistance while at the specified temperature.

Handler Simulation Tester

A next generation life cycle tester has been added to the lab. This tester cycles up to 64 spring probes against a lead frame material that can be plated with a variety of alloys including lead-free solders. The 4-wire resistance is measured on each probe at programmable intervals. The advantage of this test system is that the board is mounted to a motorized X, Y table that increments between each probe cycle. Each probe’s contact is at a virgin location on the board. This test emulates the end use application of our probes in test sockets where a new device with virgin pads is tested each cycle and the handler may introduce some small amount of scrub.