Automated Test System Articles

Hardware Testing Process – How to test products during production A typical hardware testing process Before testing a piece of hardware, the test engineer should be clear on the purpose of the [...]

Hardware reliability testing FAQ What’s different about hardware reliability testing? When is it most useful? What are the most important things to keep in mind? What should I watch out for? [...]

Using LabVIEW for Automated Testing Using LabVIEW for automated test is the most common use case for LabVIEW (there are others; see LabVIEW Uses - What is LabVIEW used for? 4 [...]

Commissioning  Custom Test Equipment Steps to take and Gotchas to avoid Main to do items before starting commissioning Commissioning process steps Gotchas and tips to mitigate risk for each step [...]

What is LabVIEW? – A developer’s perspective Most common misunderstanding about LabVIEW What LabVIEW is best-suited for What you can do with LabVIEW What you can’t do with LabVIEW [...]

LabVIEW Help What are my options? There are 3 main ways to get LabVIEW help: National Instruments (creator of LabVIEW) has several online help resources.If your company is a heavy [...]

Custom Automated Test Equipment Design Requirements: What’s most important to get right and what you don’t need to worry as much about Specifying design requirements for custom test equipment can be a bit [...]

Testing Methods for Pumps and Compressors Do you manufacture pumps or compressors?  Do you want some ideas on how to test them? If you’re interested in hardware product testing methods in general, [...]

Testing Methods for Hydraulic Actuators Do you manufacture hydraulic actuators (or sub-systems with hydraulic actuators as components)?  Do you want some ideas on how to test them? If you’re interested in hardware [...]

Hardware Test Plan – for complex or mission-critical products For companies that manufacture components and systems for complex industrial or mission-critical applications.  We’ll answer the following questions: What does a hardware test [...]

Hardware Test Automation Tools – for complex electromechanical product manufacturing You’re likely asking yourself at least one of these questions: What software is available to test my hardware product? What hardware is [...]

Where is LabVIEW Used? Who uses LabVIEW? What companies use it? Where LabVIEW is used LabVIEW is used most by companies that manufacture hardware of some sort, specifically in the [...]

How to find a LabVIEW developer - 5 LabVIEW Consultant Selection Considerations From industry-specific knowledge, to hourly rate, to FPGA, PXI, and cRIO skills, there’s a decent amount to consider before [...]

How to Develop a Good Acceptance Test The most important influencer of a good Acceptance Test (AT) is a set of good requirements Developing an Acceptance Test is something [...]

I Hate Writing Requirements Too   It’s hard work! Introduction After Viewpoint engaged a marketing firm to help us develop web content, the marketers asked if we had [...]

Why Poor LabVIEW Project Organization Makes Your Code Stink The good news is that if you currently experience these problems, there is hope We often find ourselves knee-deep in a project only [...]

Tips for Digital Signal Record and Playback   This article highlights some tips Viewpoint has learned in the design and build of digital record and playback systems based on NI FlexRIO equipment [...]

Synchronization in LabVIEW – Part 2   LabVIEW offers several types of synchronization tools. They can be placed into two groups. Occurrence, Notifier, and Queue Semaphore and Rendezvous In Synchronization in [...]

Synchronization in LabVIEW – Part 1   LabVIEW offers several types of synchronization tools Introduction LabVIEW uses data flow to sequence code execution. This approach offers inherent multitasking capabilities, including parallel [...]

Source Code Control Layout for LabVIEW Projects I find that it helps to have a consistent folder structure for each project that makes it easy for someone unfamiliar with the project to navigate [...]

Organization and Naming for LabVIEW ProjectsThis isn’t rocket science, but it can take a while to develop a good set of guidelines that work for you In the last post, we [...]

LabVIEW Programming Architectures and Frameworks   LabVIEW 2012 has reworked the templates and frameworks that have been in LabVIEW for many years In LabVIEW 2012, NI has simplified access to [...]

LabVIEW OOP to Create a Class for the Measurement Tool Chest   Each inherited class has to provide “overrides” for certain base class methods that the architecture needs The Measurement Tool [...]

LabVIEW File Types   This article describes some key file types supported in LabVIEW Background LabVIEW supports a large number of file types for reading and writing data. In addition, through [...]

LabVIEW Data Logger Sample Project The Sample Projects in LabVIEW are a great way to kickstart some common applications. I want to review one of the built-in Sample Projects in LabVIEW. [...]

How to Write Good Requirements for Test System Integrators Or at least get started down the right path I bet you know what you want. I bet you can talk about [...]

Are You Using Network Streams?   A nice feature of Network Streams is that only one side of the Network Stream needs to specify the IP address of the other side [...]

Aceptance Tests without the Headache     The most critical aspect of a good Acceptance Test is a set of good requirements A question that we commonly get asked at Viewpoint Systems [...]

8 Reasons for Manufacturing Test Automation In general, automation offers many benefits, such as more repeatability, less downtime, and generally lower cost of operation. While each test case is unique, there [...]

How-to Maximize Your Test Dollars   There are many costs and benefits to consider when deciding if an ATS is right for your organization Recently, we’ve covered possible reasons for test [...]

LabVIEW OOP Example - Measurement Tool Chest   LabVIEW has supported Object Oriented Programming (OOP) since 2006 In my opinion, many OOP examples seem contrived or esoteric. Certainly they show the [...]

Communicating between Parallel Loops There are lots of ways to move data between loops in LabVIEW and to send commands along with the data to tell the receiver what to do with those [...]