Hughes Aircraft Glory Days Part 8 of 10
A highly skilled technician would turn the X or Y handle to position the laser over the hybrid and then fire the laser with a foot pedal to trim the resistor while watching the DVM until the voltage value was within pre-burn in tolerance. He / she would then set up for the next resistor trim on the hybrid and repeat the process until all resistors had been trimmed to tolerance. While rare, it was possible during this labor-intensive manual process for the technician to over trim a resistor rendering the entire Hybrid worthless.
After every resistor was trimmed on each hybrid, the hybrid would go through a pre-burn in test procedure on the Data General Test System. It became apparent to us that our department could automate the process of resistor trim, pre and post-burn in test from three procedures into one. This would automate much of the manual process, dramatically improve laser trim quality, drastically reduce trim and test times, and allow us to employ less skilled technicians to run the system.
I was responsible for this project, engineered the hardware, and wrote a program that automatically aligned the hybrid within the trim station (Call 11), set the voltage, trimmed each and every resistor sequentially within tolerance (Call 12). At the end of trimming, a pre-burn in test would be performed. When the test passed, the computer would print out that the test passed with any vital data, the technician would initial the pass slip and include in the Hybrid’s lot traveler, then send to burn-in.
Schematic of Hybrid Laser Trim Trolley / Sled
Global Vice President of Labor and Workplace Safety at General Motors | Consensus Builder | Working to achieve shared success for employees and our business
3moThank you to all the technicians that ensure our customers have a great experience from day 1!