Atlas ® Weather-Ometer ®, and Fade-Ometer ®, are registered trademarks of Atlas Materials Testing Technology, LLC
You have thousands of hours and thousands of dollars invested in your samples. Then one day you come in and find your Weather-Ometer down and the "Test Chamber Overtemperature" light on. You open the door and find your samples drooling off of the rack and forming a nice 36" circle on the test chamber floor.
This was the scenario I found and a steering wheel manufacturer who was, needless to say, very upset with me because I had only PM'd the instrument two months earlier. What had happened was the Lenze Controller for the Air Blower saw something it didn't like and shut itself down. When this happens a nice little light illuminates on the front panel but unfortunately it doesn't help much if no one happens to be standing there watching at that moment. When the air flow stops, the Black Panel temperature shoots up to around 120 to 150C in minutes depending on irradiance and wattage. Such temperature extremes will at best invalidate the test and worst case melt the samples. If you would like to simulate this (with your samples removed,) just remove the blower belt and start the instrument with the sprays off.
The instrument's Overtemperature Sensor, either a capillary bulb or the Dry Bulb Sensor is mounted just below the air exhaust duct. When the air flow stops for any reason, (drive failure, broken belt, squirrel cage failure,) the cold room air reverses direction and comes down the duct and across the Sensor. It sometimes takes an hour or two to finally shut off on over-temperature.
The Black Panel Out of Range Safety Kit slides into the empty PC5 slot on the Ci35/65 instruments. The DC signal representing the Black Panel is routed through this board and passively compared to a user defined set point. If the BP Temp exceeds this set point, a relay changes state, stops the test, and an indicator lamp illuminates. If the signal representing the BP Temp goes below zero C (as in the case when a collector or BP Sensor shorts,) the test is also stopped. The board is sensitive enough that it will catch a jumpy BP signal caused by collector problems and end the test.
Kits are $350 and take only a screwdriver, wire stripper/crimper, and in some cases a DC voltmeter (to identify which of three wires is the BP signal,) to install. Most instruments have an empty "Test Stop Condition" spot, if yours does not it will require a hole drilled in the front panel. Full "Dick and Jane" instructions are provided, as are troubleshooting docs.
