What is ESS Testing?
An ESS test evaluates whether electronic products have any defects or malfunctioning components. ESS stands for “environmental stress screening,” and is commonly used for military technology rather than commercial products. While the tests themselves are not particularly complicated, they help weed out flaws and avoid any potential failures during future product use.
Why Is ESS Testing Important?
Why should you do ESS testing? ESS testing is an important part of ensuring that electrical components are safe to use in a variety of physical environments and conditions. Without ESS testing, the safety of electrical devices would be in question, therefore environmental stress screening is important to ensure optimal safety.
What Do They Test in ESS?
What do they test in ESS? The typical ESS test examines a variety of factors for peak performance, including temperature, flexibility, pressure, and vibrations. Tests can occur either during manufacturing or new product qualification, and help create better-quality technology. They can be performed simply by turning electronics on and off to detect flaws, but require a specific industry-grade equipment to read measurements. To conduct a proper ESS test, a user would need:
- An ESS test chamber
- Controller
- Fixturing
- Interconnect
- Wiring
- Functional tester
Additional Stress Tests
There are other kinds of tests to evaluate product quality including HALT (Highly Accelerated Life Testing) which tests design weaknesses during engineering, and HASS (Highly Accelerated Stress Testing), which identifies imperfections during early use. While HALT and HASS are used to test products under extreme conditions, ESS tests analyze electronics during regular use.
Stress Tested and Approved
At Gateway Cable Company, our products have undergone precise ESS testing to ensure the highest quality and longevity for military electronics use. Our military-grade products meet or exceed standards like MIL-SPEC and MIL-PRF. Our facility is certified ISO 9001:2015 quality standard facility. For more information on our products and testing, contact us today.