Can't wait to see this one built. It's an 8-layer board with 2 oz copper on all the inner layers.
I hope that all works.
No, which is why there are so many polyfuses, to protect the relays and the PCB traces.
I just measured some trace resistances. I specified 2 oz copper on the inner layers, and I know that PCB houses often cheat down on copper. This one is good, conductivity about 8% better than 2 oz.
It's a FITS, a cable fault insertion unit. AKA guillotine box.
Imagine a system with two boxes connected by a cable. Now chop the cable and insert this board in the middle. It can simulate any wire open, any shorted to any other, any shorted to ground. It can measure and snap waveforms of any voltage or current and can measure resistances.
This board does 24 channels but boards can be connected for bigger cables.
It plugs into our modular power system
I think I'll design the 8-channel power supply board next. It could have some interesting variations, torque motor drivers or something.
Cables are a big deal in the airplane (and the auto) business.
My manual will have voltage and current limits, so I can blame the customer for blowing up my FITS board, but that wouldn't be polite. We used giant relays, huge 2 oz PCB traces, and a lot of big polyfuses to minimize damage.
We have a launch customer, the "we hate power supplies" guys, but expect it to sell to the world. There are lots of modular instrumentation systems (PCI, PXI, VME, like that) but none for power.
Confession: those aren't done yet.
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