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Forum Testing rear window defroster grid
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Related

Testing rear window defroster grid

Former Member
Former Member over 10 years ago

Hello,

I would like to develop a testing method to detect window defroster grid failures. Rear windows has 12 heating wires painted to the glass and cca. 2% are faulty pieces.

I tried to measure the resistance, current and voltage drop of good parts and compare results with those where was at least 1 broken wire, but the difference was smaller than the tolerance specified by the supplier. (Other problem is that the resistance is greatly depending on the temperature)

Now we are testing visually with a thermo foil but it takes more time and sometimes the operator mistakes or can forget to correctly check thermo foil. It is also very important to not hurt parts during the testing process, so best option would be contactless testing if possible... image

I'am thinking about to make a tool with 12 sensors, 1 sensor to every each heating wire to sense a flowing current in a wire. But I'am not sure that there is any sensor avaible in the market for such a purpose. Finally PLC have to check the outputs of every sensors, if all the 12 wires are good (current is flowing through them) gives visual signal or in case of failure sound alarm or red light flashing.

 

Here is the specification of rear window defroster:

Power: 167,37W ±10%
Current: 12,87A ±1A
Resistance: 1,0 Ohm -10%/+20%
Wire thickness: 0,48mm
In the attachment you can find technical drawing of the window.

Any ideas and suggestions are welcome.

Best regards,

Ate

Attachments:
image
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Top Replies

  • Robert Peter Oakes
    Robert Peter Oakes over 10 years ago +2
    IF money is not too much of an issue then a thermal camera would instantly show you the broken wire this may set you back 1000$ but would return that pretty quickly in time saved
  • jw0752
    jw0752 over 10 years ago +2 suggested
    Hi Iansm, I had some time this evening and decided to breadboard and test the one Hall Effect device I have in my build stock: SS49E Here is a link to the Newark listing: http://www.newark.com/webapp/wcs…
  • Robert Peter Oakes
    Robert Peter Oakes over 10 years ago +2
    Sticking with my suggestion of Hall effect sensors and Johns excelent testing of such, but thinking about the low signal to noise ratio, one option would be to significantly increase the current... AKA…
Parents
  • jw0752
    0 jw0752 over 10 years ago

    Hi Iansm,

    I had some time this evening and decided to breadboard and test the one Hall Effect device I have in my build stock: SS49E Here is a link to the Newark listing:

     

    http://www.newark.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/Search?catalogId=15003&mfpn=SS49E&langId=-1&searchRef=SearchLookAhead&storeId=10194

     

    Also here is a data sheet on the device:

     

    http://www.farnell.com/datasheets/1697810.pdf

     

    With a 5.2 volt supply to the Hall Effect sensor the output is approximately 2.6 volts. When a magnetic field that is passing through the sensor this voltage either increases above the 2.6 volts or decreases below the 2.6 volts depending on field polarity. The amount of of the increase or decrease depends on the strength of the magnetic field. Here is a snippet of a graph from the Data Sheet that shows this relationship.

     

    image

    Click on the image to enlarge it. This came from the Data Sheet listed above.

     

    Here is the setup that I bread boarded to test this Hall Effect sensor under your specifications.

     

    image

    The Hall Effect sensor is the small black transistor like device. I am powering it with a 5.2 volt supply which is a tad higher than shown in the data sheet graph. This has no effect except to raise the output to 2.6 volts when there is no magnetic field. The Yellow horizontal wire is hooked up to a separate power supply and a load so that I can put 1 amp through it, just as your window heater wires would experience under normal powered conditions. I experimented a while to see where I could get the best sensor reading on the current in the wire. I found that I was not able to detect the current in the wire unless the yellow wire was sitting right on top of the sensor. The magnetic field from 1 amp is quite weak and there was no ability to sense it with this sensor if the wire wasn't directly on top of the sensor. Here are the readings that I got on my meter.

     

    image

     

    This is the output of the sensor when there is no current in the wire.

     

    image

     

    This is the output from the SS49E Hall Effect sensor when the current in the wire is 1 Amp. This is only a change of 3 millivolts. I wish I had more experience with Hall Effect sensors so that I could recommend a specific sensor. One of the engineers on this site will probably have a good recommendation for you. This sensor, while it demonstrates proof of concept, would not be sensitive enough for your application. 3 mV is weak enough so that it would be difficult to discriminate it from noise in your test setting.

     

    John

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  • jw0752
    0 jw0752 over 10 years ago

    Hi Iansm,

    I had some time this evening and decided to breadboard and test the one Hall Effect device I have in my build stock: SS49E Here is a link to the Newark listing:

     

    http://www.newark.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/Search?catalogId=15003&mfpn=SS49E&langId=-1&searchRef=SearchLookAhead&storeId=10194

     

    Also here is a data sheet on the device:

     

    http://www.farnell.com/datasheets/1697810.pdf

     

    With a 5.2 volt supply to the Hall Effect sensor the output is approximately 2.6 volts. When a magnetic field that is passing through the sensor this voltage either increases above the 2.6 volts or decreases below the 2.6 volts depending on field polarity. The amount of of the increase or decrease depends on the strength of the magnetic field. Here is a snippet of a graph from the Data Sheet that shows this relationship.

     

    image

    Click on the image to enlarge it. This came from the Data Sheet listed above.

     

    Here is the setup that I bread boarded to test this Hall Effect sensor under your specifications.

     

    image

    The Hall Effect sensor is the small black transistor like device. I am powering it with a 5.2 volt supply which is a tad higher than shown in the data sheet graph. This has no effect except to raise the output to 2.6 volts when there is no magnetic field. The Yellow horizontal wire is hooked up to a separate power supply and a load so that I can put 1 amp through it, just as your window heater wires would experience under normal powered conditions. I experimented a while to see where I could get the best sensor reading on the current in the wire. I found that I was not able to detect the current in the wire unless the yellow wire was sitting right on top of the sensor. The magnetic field from 1 amp is quite weak and there was no ability to sense it with this sensor if the wire wasn't directly on top of the sensor. Here are the readings that I got on my meter.

     

    image

     

    This is the output of the sensor when there is no current in the wire.

     

    image

     

    This is the output from the SS49E Hall Effect sensor when the current in the wire is 1 Amp. This is only a change of 3 millivolts. I wish I had more experience with Hall Effect sensors so that I could recommend a specific sensor. One of the engineers on this site will probably have a good recommendation for you. This sensor, while it demonstrates proof of concept, would not be sensitive enough for your application. 3 mV is weak enough so that it would be difficult to discriminate it from noise in your test setting.

     

    John

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  • Former Member
    0 Former Member over 10 years ago in reply to jw0752

    Hi John,

    Thank you so much for your helpful support, really appreciate!

    I hope it will be the right concept, "just" need to find more sensitive sensor. Maybe it would be more sensitive with AC power or I can lower the voltage a little. image  Unfortunately I have no other idea, what could be fast and contactless. I am little bit sceptic about thermo cameras, there could be many confounding factors, I think.

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  • scorpion
    0 scorpion over 10 years ago in reply to Former Member

    With all of these expensive answers wouldn't it be easier to just buy a new window?

    Ben

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  • jw0752
    0 jw0752 over 10 years ago in reply to Former Member

    Hi Iansm,

    Your idea to use AC voltage may have merit. It would provide a 6 mV PP signal voltage (using the SS49E) that could be amplified with an OpAmp and then drive some sort of display.

     

    Just for the fun of it I took my sensitive thermistor instrument out and turned on my rear window defroster in my car. Within a minute I could see the heat gradients rise and fall as I pulled the thermistor across the embedded wires in the window. Unfortunately this effect diminished as the window heated up towards an equilibrium temperature.

     

    I will continue to think about this problem and I will re-post if any other ideas come up.

     

    John

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  • jw0752
    0 jw0752 over 10 years ago in reply to scorpion

    Hi Ben,

    I think that Iansm is trying to do Quality Control in a small factory setting.

    John

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  • Robert Peter Oakes
    0 Robert Peter Oakes over 10 years ago in reply to jw0752

    That would be correct, this is not a one off repair, solutions would be far simpler of that where the case

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