An Over-Current of Christmas Joy
Nearing the end of 2021 we wanted to share one last wire experiment. Please enjoy Lectromec’s Over-Current of Christmas Joy. Happy Holidays! – the Lectromec team Read more
Blog
AS23053 Dimensional Life of Heat Shrink Tubing
We are told that low humidity and cool temperatures are the best way to extend component life, but even in such conditions not all components can sit on a warehouse shelf indefinitely awaiting the day of installation. One of the more susceptible EWIS components to aging on the warehouse shelf are heat shrink tubing. Here, we examine concept of dimensional life of heat shrink tubing.
Read moreLow Temperature Bend Testing for Lunar Applications
NASA sought to evaluate wire and cable flexibility for lunar applications; specifically looking to evaluate the ease of reeling/unreeling wire and cable in lunar environments. Bend testing was performed on 35 different insulated wire and cable constructions at liquid nitrogen temperature to evaluate flexibility in extreme cold conditions. It was the intent of this effort that, “testing at the extreme cold temperature of liquid nitrogen will begin to build a database of what off-the-shelf types of wires and eventually cabling may be applicable to the lunar environment.” Read more
Risk Assessment and Small Aircraft Certification
The basic idea behind the F3230 is to limit the total number of assessments to those that are of particular concern for aircraft safety. This aligns with the change of part 23 aircraft the FAA has implemented for a more performance-based certification approach versus the detailed and prescriptive approach that the FAA used prior to 2016. Read more
Verification and Validation
Amidst the manufacturing process, a structured system of quality assurance is of utmost importance; implementation of a standardized evaluation system is key to ensuring that whatever is being made is up par for its certain usage. In the world of technology and manufacturing, the evaluative journey of a product from start to finish is broken up into multiple segments.
Read moreA New Revision of MIL-HDBK-522
A new version (Revision C) of MIL-HDBK-522 was released on May 11, 2021. This article examines many of the changes made between Revision B and Revision C. Read more
Aerospace High Voltage Systems: Addressing the Gaps in Current Standards
The aerospace segment has been dealing with questions of high voltage systems for the last decade. Many of these questions revolve around the generation, storage, and use of this power, but what has also been a hindrance for progress is defining how the standards for the wiring system need to be updated to address these high voltage requirements. As should be done when any new technology is being applied to a field, we should first look at other fields which have undergone the implementation of similar technologies. For example, the automotive market has been using high voltage systems for quite some time and the standards committees have produced documents supporting these technologies.
In this article, we review one of these documents on high voltage directed to the automotive market and see how it lines up with the existing aerospace standards.
Read moreSkin Effect
An area of power transmission that we have not talked about in any Lectromec article thus far is the impact of skin effect. While this is an area that is well documented and understood for signal/data cables, the impacts in the area of power cables have been generally ignored. However, as power systems embrace new power technologies, skin effect starts to creep in to have a noticeable and measurable impact. In this article, we discuss what skin effect is and its impact.
Read moreIn Consideration of Backshells
The backshell of a connector is an item that perhaps does not get the attention that it should. Often the discussion of EWIS focuses on the wiring, the connectors, or managing the risk of EWIS failures, but the connector backshell is ignored. The simple connector backshell (that is anything but simple) is designed for support and protection of wires and cables physically and, in the case of signal cables, support and protect electrically too. The following is a brief introduction to backshells, their use, associated standards, and research that has been performed to determine what to look for when performing maintenance.
Read morePull Through Testing- An Addition to NEMA 27500
An area that has been poorly defined until recently has been the potential damage to wire/cable insulation due to wiring installation on aircraft. The latest revision of NEMA 27500 has looked to address this gap in cable assessments. In this article, we review the test requirement, expected performance, and what the results may mean to designers and installers.
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