General-purpose testing machine design and related-test design for the operation panels and control unit modules of washing machine

ABSTRACT The aim of this thesis was to design a new system interface to exploit the new automatic test equipment “T100” designed by Spea Spa, to program and test the washing machine control panel and its board into as a whole and verify its performance. It can also be seen as an improved design of flying probe tester, by adjusting the test head, fixture and other important parts to broaden its field of application. This thesis was offered by SPEA Spa, through the coordination of Fabrizio Carnisio and Piergiuseppe Ranieri, respectively customer manager and test engineer in Spea company. The project was commissioned by a European leader company in this field. In this spring (2019), this company, involved in full range of small and large domestic appliances, decided to find a new way, combining efficiency and accuracy, to detect its washing machine panel with electronic board. The machine was reformed from 4050 S2 flying probe tester, however, the main technology used to detect the electrical function of the board under the panel and get the feedback of the signal from the system is based on the BON 3030 ICT tester, and this was also the part of my main involvement. It was a very complete project, through the efforts of professionals in all aspects of mechanics, electronics and programming in SPEA to meet customer requirements. The core task was to use a new test head instead of flying probes, simulating human fingers, touch the options on the panel and verify the board performance under the panel. It was also required to use camera to check the panel status at any time. In terms of electrical, a suitable adapter of BON system should be designed to receive the signal from the system and using VB.net as a bridge to accomplish the data compilation and data transfer between the systems and the boards, then analyzed the feedback signals with a computer to confirm whether the test results of washing machine panel were pass or failed. The project was mainly divided into three parts: hardware design, BON adapter design and software design. All the requests were discussed by both the staff members of Spea spa and customer, after the design consensus (which performance can be achieved, and which cannot) was reached, the machine was started to design and rebuild. The result of the thesis is to design a new tester interface for testing washing machine control unit module with board performance test and panel vision test.