ES400 Modules Greatly Reduce Instrumentation Rework Effort - ETAS

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The ES400 modules further facilitatesharing vehicle and measurement in-strumentation with many differentgroups since measurement config-urations can be stored locally on theindividual units.

Due to the unique “underhood” capa-bilities of the ES400 modules (theES400 modules have an IP67 environ-mental protection rating), this alsomeant that even engine hardware,components, or subsystem updatesand changeovers could be handledvery quickly and efficiently. That’sbecause the instrumentation can belocated in the best physical packaginglocation without having to considerhow to protect the instrumentationfrom damage during use. These fre-quent changeovers can now be ac-complished in only one week, where inthe past it would have taken severalweeks.

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F or a company whose primarybusiness is the design, develop-

ment, and production of light, me-dium, and heavy duty diesel engines,the availability of test and develop-ment vehicles at Navistar is limited.Most test and development vehiclesare actively being used for testing pur-poses. To further complicate the issueof their high utilization, these test ve-hicles are also required to be sharedacross many different groups, each ofwhich requires different types of teststhat must be executed. These differenttypes of tests include emissions, per-formance, Noise Vibration and Harsh-ness (NVH), durability, and full DVP&R(Design Validation Plan and Report)testing.

Additionally, because of the immensepressure in the industry to bring new,high quality products to market asquickly as possible, test vehicles mustalso be updated quite often with newengines and components/subsystemsand with all of the corresponding in-strumentation required for each typeof test needed to be run. To make themost efficient use of not only the testvehicle, but also the test engineer'stime, it is important that these engineand/or component/subsystem change-overs occur as quickly as possible.

ES400 Modules GreatlyReduce InstrumentationRework Effort ES400s allow Navistar to instrument a test vehicle once

and “forget it”

By Arnold Garza, Navistar Engine

Navistar Engine is one of the largest suppliers of diesel engines in the world. Sales of light duty diesel engines for use in North American vehicles are an important part of its business. To support this business, a large amount of effort and focus is placed on in-vehicle develop-ment and testing. Navistar found the ES400 compact measurement modules from ETAS to be a good fit for its needs.

In the past, the only option available totest engineers was to “tear down” thevehicle after testing was completed,and install a different set of instru-mentation to support the next set ofvehicle tests. Of course, this wholeprocess was very time consuming andneeded to be performed many, manytimes during development. This wholecycle, while necessary, did not providevalue to the engine developmentprocess.

Navistar was quick to recognize thebenefits that ETAS’ ES400 compactmodule series could provide. Thebiggest benefit is that the ES400modules could quickly and easily beinstalled in a vehicle only once in sucha way that all engine and vehiclemeasurement signals could be cap-tured for all required vehicle testing.This meant that the vehicle instrumen-tation could be shared across multiplegroups and multiple tests and that thevehicle only had to be instrumentedone time.

Mounting details:Five ES420 Thermo Modules and four ES411 A/D Modules fit right next to the engine compartment inside the fender well, allowing Navistar to measure 32 temperatureand 16 pressure signals and run only one cable through the firewall to connect it to the ES600 NetworkModule.

Navistar’s DuraStar medium-duty utility truck.

The other challenge that Navistarhad in the past was space. Due tothe physical packaging constraints oftrying to fit a light duty diesel engineinto the engine compartment of a lightor medium duty passenger truck, thereis not much (if any) additional spacein either the engine compartment, oreven the vehicle itself, for instrumen-tation.

Because of this space limitation, ETAS’ES400 daisy chain topology providesmany benefits such as greatly sim-plified, efficient, and robust vehicleinstrumentation installations.

First, the ES400 modules require onlya single small Ethernet cable to bepassed into the vehicle’s passengercompartment. With other types of in-strumentation, additional holes mustbe drilled in the test vehicle to allowfor instrumentation wiring to passinto the vehicle’s passenger compart-ment.

Secondly, the ES400 eliminates thefurther cost and hassle of additionalsignal conditioning hardware. Sincethe ES400 modules can be mountedclose to the signal source, this alsogreatly reduces electrical signal noise.

Navistar also discovered that it couldleverage its capital instrumentationpurchases due to the compatibility ofthe ES400s with all of Navistar’s exist-ing ETAS measurement and calibrationhardware and software. Navistar wasable to reuse its existing ECU interfacedevices as well as its other ES600measurement devices. In fact, Navistarreused its ES650 module to measureboth turbo speed and fuel tempera-ture.

Navistar has been impressed with thelevel of productivity improvements ithas been able to realize as a result ofincorporating ETAS’ ES400 modulesinto its test and evaluation vehicles.The ES400 modules are a valuableaddition to the ETAS portfolio ofmeasurement and calibration prod-ucts.