Application of infrared thermography to diagnosis and testing of electronic equipment

Zaproponowano zastosowanie techniki termowizyjnej do oceny poprawność konstrukcji i działania urządzeń elektronicznych. Technikę termowizyjną zastosowano do badania elementów ochronnych zasilacza AC/DC w czasie standardowych badań odporności na udary oraz do badania modułów GSM pracujących pod kontrolą nadrzędnego programu sterującego i płyty głównej centrali systemu przeciwpożarowego. Pomiary termowizyjne zastosowano do oceny przyrostu temperatury ww. urządzeń.In the paper there is proposed use of infrared thermography for assessing the validity of construction and operation of electronic devices. The most important advantages of this technique are the short time of studies and the ability of direct evaluation of results. It was found that for electronic devices it was appropriate to record infrared imagings in various states of their operation. Comparison of temperature increments from different states of operation enables validation of constructions from the heat discharge point of view. Investigations were performed for AC/DC power supplies, a GSM module, and the motherboard of a fire-fighting system using the camera VIGOcam v50. For AC/DC power supplies (Fig. 1) it was proposed to record infrared imagings during the surge immunity test (the standard EN 61000-4-5) in order to evaluate the quality of protective elements, varistors. From the imaging of the power supply immediately after the first surge (Fig. 2b) it was possible to evaluate the temperature increment on the varistor. It was stated that the accepted temperature increments on the varistor could be equal up to 30°C. The research results for the GSM module (Fig. 3) and the motherboard of the fire-fighting system (Figs. 4 and 5) are presented as imagings of the devices operating in a standby regime and with a full power. The areas with increased emission were identified. It was found that infrared thermography is very useful in the assessment of temperature distributions