Continual Weathering / Fading Inter-laboratory Comparison
Purpose: to create a database to access for comparison of your company's weathering instruments to others. "Am I doing this right?" is a question we still ask ourselves after decades of doing field work and testing. Test standards don't always answer the questions on how to set up an instrument and interpretation of expectations or one wrong toggle or digit in the program set up may cause your instrument to under or over expose specimens which is always an expensive problem depending on what the decisions are being made based on the results.
Being a field calibration technician for 20 years prior to running a test lab, when the Lot 8 Polystyrene Chips were consistently bouncing along the bottom of the acceptable values no matter how carefully the instrument was calibrated and observed, it was clear the problem was with the data available for the plaques or the instrument set up.
Note: this is a "free" service. The intent is to establish a continuously updated library of anonymously submitted instrument set ups and results using currently available reference materials. We are not claiming any accreditation for this ILC or the data to ISO 17043 and we will only be doing very basic statistical correlation. This data is for establishing baseline data and creating conversation in various committees to more completely describe expected conditions in a weathering chamber. We have no affiliation with any manufacturer, though we intend to solicit their input for recommended set up and programming where applicable. Where NJIC has filled out the set up sheets, we welcome comments and recommendations. We prefer participants be ISO/IEC 17025 accredited, have accredited calibration providers or OEM serviced instruments, or have in-house calibration technicians familiar with the instruments, not just the measured values (i.e., know how to check the functionality of the instrument. This is an honor system request.
Charges: the first shipment is $100, subsequent shipments are free if the previous are returned. Your data is considered private and we will provide a signed "non-disclosure agreement."
The process: we will ship you four reference plaques or swatches depending on the standard that we have read as color standards using a factory serviced X-Rite Ci4200, 13mm port, D65, 10 deg observer, SCI, CIELAB units, with a white tile behind them for the polystyrene plaques and averaged twice at 90 degrees for wools. We will assign your lab a random instrument identifier which will identify your data only to you. Confidentiality is guaranteed. Nowhere will your lab instrument numbers exist on any computer. For example: Ci4000-14 or XE3-12 will be assigned to your lab for one of your particular instruments.
You may run them in any chamber, using any conditions or set up, for any test standard, for any intervals convenient.
Return the specimens with the hours or kJ run on each reference specimen. Include the set up used, NJIC will read them and add the data to the appropriate test standard page.
There is no right or wrong answer, the idea is to plot the yellowness index or color change vs time and create a database of exposure settings for a particular standard against values. Only participants will have access to the web pages with results. The set up pages will be publicly available and you may access them prior to running your reference materials. We ask that you not allow the existing data to influence your submissions.
Example ONLY: (2005 version was superseded do not use for testing.)
