Archive : 24 September 2026 год

Researchers from Universidad Autónoma de Ciudad Juárez have developed an open-hardware Electrical Testing Board that provides in-circuit and functional testing capabilities at a fraction of the cost of industrial automated test equipment. The complete system can be built for approximately $790 and is intended for prototyping, education, laboratories, and small-scale manufacturing.

Key Characteristics

• Cost: ≈ $790 to build
• Board size: 187 × 160 mm, 4-layer FR-4
• Connector: 88-pin gold-finger for backplane integration
• Architecture: Three-board modular design
  • Main PCB with functional test circuitry
  • Relay PCB for signal switching
  • Pluggable microcontroller board
• Main controller: Microchip PIC32MX795F512L @ 80 MHz
• Relay controllers: Two PIC18F4620 microcontrollers
• Test nodes: 16 nodes with relay-based switching buses
• Test cycle time: 10–50 ms per device
• Measurement ranges:
  • Voltage: 0 – 100 V
  • Current: 1 µA – 1 mA
  • Resistance: 0.5 Ω – 1 MΩ
  • Capacitance: 10 nF – 220 µF
• Measurement performance: Voltage and resistance errors typically below 1% (higher ranges)
• Bandwidth: DC to 10 kHz
• Communication: RS-232, opto-isolated UART, Ethernet
• Scalability: Up to 12 boards can be connected to one host for parallel testing

The system routes signals between programmable power supplies, measurement circuits, comparators, pull-up/pull-down networks and protection circuitry. It is not intended to replace high-end industrial ATE — it supports one device under test per board and does not include inductance measurement or JTAG boundary scan.

Open-Source Licensing

• Hardware: CERN Open Hardware Licence v2.0
• Firmware: GNU GPL v3.0
• Documentation: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0

Design files, schematics, firmware and bill of materials are publicly available for replication and modification.

Source:  Electronics For You