Hi I'm here testing microcurrents. You've seen this before in one of my Uh Raw videos I showed the process of testing these microcurrents and yes, I made another, um, a couple of big batches of them and I always said that I'd probably do a proper test jig one day if the volume's got high enough and well, I've already done 150 of them or 100 of them and I didn't even bother. uh to, you know, do a jig for that sort of volume. It's ah, just got to the point where oh, what the hell, I'll just sit down for a couple of hours and test these things.

but it's getting rather annoying having to connect and disconnect the things getting sore fingers. I get little shards of um, uh, metal and fiberglass and all sorts of things over my fingers and it's just really rather annoying. So I thought I'd just build a simple uh jig because I've gotten down to a point where most of my time is actually spent connecting up the microcurrent like this and I've got to do that. I do it in batches of uh 50.

Why? Well, it's a nice round number and 50 seems to fit nicely in this little area where I can, um, just have them loose and then I can test them and I go through three times because it's got three different ranges on this thing. Um, it's uh, not really. um I don't want to wear out my test gear so I'm not going to go and change the knobs for each unit three times. That's ridiculous.

So what I do is I put it on one range I set one range on my uh current constant current generator and I go through and measure all 50 on that range and then I switch the current range I go through, measure all 50 again and I do it again. So you can't really optimize the time it takes for things like inserting the battery and tightening up the connectors and doing a visual inspection and stuff like that. But I can uh I think? um, optimize the time that requires to like? It only takes a couple of seconds, but uh, to do this, but you do this a thousand times gets a little bit annoying. So I thought I'd just uh, make up a little uh test jig to where I can just come along with the board, press it on and take the readings.

So how much time can I save? Well, it's probably not going to be a huge amount cuz you know the the difference between inserting and removing some connectors and just pushing it down on a jig. It's probably not going to be a huge amount, but it saves. it's just. it's just nicer.

It saves a lot of wear and te on the fingers and Hassle and so I don't expect a huge amount, but let's try and measure it. So I've already inserted my battery I've tightened the connectors I've given it a visual uh inspection. so let's go. here we go.

It's on the correct range. plug it in and uh, that is within spec. Happy with that disconnect and bingo, That's it. Put it over there, stop 15 seconds or so you know.

Um, so I think we can? maybe, uh, you know, slash that down to five. Maybe that actually might be significant, especially if you're making hundreds. or if you're making thousands of things. So let's try and build up a jig now with a good lot of Uh products that have to be uh tested.

They will just have input and output connectors like this so there's no test pads or anything on the bottom. I don't have to access the circuit in this case, it's just here and here. So uh, really. um I want a jig that automatically takes some banana plugs like this and inserts them into here? So I want them to line up here and here and just push it down in a jig like that that makes contact UM on either the bottom here or the top? I'm not too fussy on that, so um, it doesn't it? Mak Sense on the bottom because I can use some banana plugs like this and they can make contact.

you know, make reason good contact with those bottom ones. but these top ones they got. um, you know, they don't have the hole in them, so it probably makes sense to actually, um, have my jig come in from the top. So I actually plug my If my jig is sitting on the bench like this, let's say this is my jig and it's got the connectors uh, sticking out of it like this I would probably take my board, stick it upside down and plug it in like that so that these can make contact with the banana plugs and I just hold it in place I don't have to push it all the way on.

it's good enough just to just to hold it there for a couple of seconds while you take the measurement and put it off. Bang bang bang. And of course the first thing you might think of is get a box like this and uh, put in some banana plugs or some Pogo pins or uh, other uh, test probes or something like that. But why? it's very common to use the existing Board of your product cuz it's already got the holes aligned for you.

Everything's there. So what we'll do is we'll just use an existing reject board for our test jig. This one's got a big silk screen blotch on it. Check that out so you know can't sell that one.

So what we'll do is we'll use that and we'll use the actual product case itself and we'll just get some banana plugs and we'll solder them in there like that at the correct height and bang. it'll just go on there. You'll notice that these two connectors are of course different heights here. So I'm going to have my jig has to have the these banana plugs at each end at different heights.

All I've got to do is measure the height difference there and ensure that I solder them. Um, you know one the ones at one end actually stick out further than ones at the other end. So there we have it. I've uh, solded some 4 mm banana sockets on there to and wide them straight through to the post like that.

So here's my completed jig. Didn't take very long at all, all it does is duplicates the connectors and just allows me to press fit a board on top. So I think we're going to save some time here. Let's try it out.

I've got my board, batter's inserted and uh I've tightened up the connectors. done my visual check, everything's fine. let's go. it's on the correct range.

plug it on, hold it in place Bingo it's within spec done. Ah, 10 seconds. So we shaved five off but could probably do that in five. Let's try it again.

What the heck? Let's go here. We go Ready. Bang Bang Bang? Fine. Boom Stop.

Yeah. 5.7 seconds. You know? jeez. should have done that 500 units ago.

Crazy. But there you go. There's a uh, simple, um, just not automated, but a uh, a nice little uh test jig that allows you to test uh products like this when you're manufacturing them in the hundreds or even the thousands. Um, really? to automate it even more than this? I You know it's really hard to do so pretty much gotten down to the point where it's completely optimized.

Now the testing of the microcurrents? Beautiful. So there you go. Got to finish testing these 50 units and if you like the video, give it a thumbs up. Helps a lot catch you next time for.