Your line only ships good product if the test proves the failure modes that matter. That's why LTec starts with your test strategy — coverage, sequencing, fault spectrum — then builds the system around it: turnkey, from your requirement spec to a validated IQ/OQ/PQ handover you can put in front of an auditor.
TRUSTED ACROSS REGULATED, HIGH-RELIABILITY INDUSTRIES
Most suppliers sell you a tester. LTec develops your test. We begin with the test strategy — what has to be proven, the fault spectrum, sequencing and coverage — because that is what determines whether your line ships good product. Then we integrate that test into your production process, and automate the handling, inspection and data flow around it.
Because LTec also designs the assembly fixtures and runs the laboratory that analyses why products fail, test is engineered as part of your whole process — not a box bolted on at the end. We advise on PCB panel layout and design-for-manufacture before the board is frozen, build the fixture that holds it, write the code that proves it, and validate the system your auditors will inspect. One team, one accountable partner, concept to production.
Most test investment is wasted rebuilding whole systems for each new product. LTec's modular Functional Circuit Test platform separates the expensive, reusable parts from the product-specific ones: a standardised base station you build once — control, safety, instrumentation, I/O, software framework — and interchangeable cassettes carrying the probes, wiring, connectors and mechanics for each product. Add a new product by designing a new cassette, not a duplicate tester.
↓ Download the FCT platform overview (PDF) LT-TA-BRO-001 · REV 1.0 · 6 PAGES · 270 KB · OR TALK IT THROUGH NOW
Bench-top station for engineering test development and compact production.
This is the station your test sequences are written and debugged on — at the bench in our Coolmine lab, probes on your DUT, before anything ships to your line.
Floor-standing cell for higher volumes and complex electromechanical assemblies.
Built and soak-tested on our lab floor with your operators in mind — guided prompts on screen, interlocked guarding, serialised results from the first cycle.
Each cassette is built and buzzed out at a lab bench — your product's probes, wiring and mechanics on a plate an engineer can hold.
Multiple rails and sequencing, programmable loads where needed, protection and interlocks.
Analogue and digital measurement, current/voltage and sensor checks, multi-channel DAQ options.
Relays and multiplexing, stimulus and monitoring, support for test-point access.
Common serial interfaces, networked device testing, protocol handling in test software.
E-Stop and guarding integration, operator prompts and guided steps, results, logs and serialisation.
Optional actuation for connectors, product clamping and guarding, position and presence sensing.
Rotary-indexing platforms, conveyor-linked workstations, dual-head testers for parallel throughput, life-cycle rigs and thermal-chamber-integrated systems — for medical device, automotive, pharma, food-compliance, defence, consumer electronics and aerospace.
Top, bottom and side-probing; manual, pneumatic and mass-interconnect fixtures (Keysight, MAC Panel, Virginia Panel, Teradyne); bed-of-nails and dual-bed for load-one/test-one parallelism; hood-locking and solenoid interlocks for high-voltage safety; custom current-sense circuitry in the test pan.
Shielded enclosures with greater than 70 dB isolation for reliable over-the-air testing on the production floor — replicating real-world RF behaviour for wireless devices, from mobile products to keyless-entry systems.
Where off-the-shelf instruments can't do it, we design, build, test and calibrate custom electronics in-house — PXI 3U cards, custom backplanes, simulation hardware such as microcontroller-driven resistor strings simulating physiological signals. Real DFT engineering, not just integration.
A full suite in-house: NI TestStand sequences, LabVIEW (custom and generic VIs), .NET, C/C++, LabWindows/CVI, and custom operator GUIs in Visual Studio. Self-test routines, OCR/barcode serialisation, and integration to your shop-floor data collection (SFDC) and SPC — so every unit becomes traceable data, not just a pass light.
Inline and offline automation including 6-axis robotics and high-end 3D machine vision, for assembly, handling and inspection where manual methods limit quality or throughput.
Full GAMP 5 lifecycle: URS → FDS → DQ → build & integration → FAT → SAT → IQ → OQ → PQ. CE-marked systems delivered with documentation written for ISO 13485 environments and the auditors who work in them.
Application engineering through warranty, long-term maintenance contracts, spares, and upgrade paths. Self-test routines and full documentation so your own technicians can maintain the system confidently.
URS & FDS developed with your test engineers; coverage, throughput, fault spectrum, data, floor-space, safety & ergonomics agreed. DFM guidance on panel layout. Clear deliverables before build.
Hardware, fixture and software design with design qualification, reviewed at fixed gates.
System build and software development at LTec, with your product; Factory Acceptance Testing against the agreed spec before shipping.
Site Acceptance Testing, IQ/OQ/PQ execution, operator training.
Warranty support from the engineers who built it, plus lifecycle maintenance.
A leading automotive manufacturer needed repeatable multi-sensor calibration inside a thermal chamber, replacing a manual method that couldn't hold a constant test environment. LTec delivered a turnkey platform — chiller, reservoir, PLC and industrial-PC control, precision repeatable-mount fixtures — integrated with the client's own NI TestStand/LabVIEW programme, in under three months. LTec went on to supply further systems globally.
An international medical device company tendered the complete backend test suite for a new product. LTec built semi-automatic sub-assembly, final-assembly and battery test stations — rotary indexing, Z-axis probe plates, OCR inspection, SFDC integration — all CE-marked and validated to GAMP 5. Final assembly ≤14s; a 240-battery batch tested in under 12 minutes.
For a Class 3 device, LTec delivered a dual-bed-of-nails pedestal tester allowing load-one/test-one parallelism, built on TestStand API/Engine with LabVIEW/.NET/C++ modules. Intelligent High-Voltage (HVI) design ensured safe capacitor discharge on abort, with solenoid interlocks protecting the operator. CE compliant.
Designed, built and supported from Dublin 15, with solutions deployed across Ireland, UK, Europe and Asia.
The lab that analyses failures and the toolroom that builds fixtures sit beside the test team — feedback in hours, not weeks.
Mechanical, electromechanical, custom electronics, software and validation under one roof. Few integrators of our size design their own PXI hardware.
We work inside medical device quality systems every week; CE marking and IQ/OQ/PQ documentation are the default, not an add-on.
Yes — NI TestStand and LabVIEW development is in-house, alongside .NET, C/C++, LabWindows/CVI and Visual Studio GUIs, including SFDC/SPC integration.
Yes — full GAMP 5 IQ/OQ/PQ lifecycle with CE marking and ISO 13485-ready documentation.
Both — from a single mass-interconnect or RF fixture to a complete validated production line.
Yes; that's our home ground, and the modular FCT platform is built precisely for product families and variants.
Yes — PXI cards, backplanes and simulation hardware designed, built and calibrated in-house.
Send a sample DUT, a drawing or just the problem. A test engineer will respond within one working day — whether that's a question, a follow-up call, a meeting or a visit to your site.
When your assembly and test process depends on precision and repeatability, you need tooling you can trust. LTec Engineering designs and manufactures the jigs, fixtures, carriers and laser-cut stencils that let you build with confidence — three decades of specialist toolmaking, the work LTec was built on in 1994 and still at the heart of everything we make.
TRUSTED ACROSS REGULATED, HIGH-RELIABILITY INDUSTRIES
Good tooling is problem-first, not part-first. We reduce complexity before we add actuators — fewer parts, lower cost, higher uptime. Every jig, fixture and carrier is engineered for the people who'll use it: poka-yoke so it can only load correctly, ergonomic for the operator, and serviceable when it matters.
Because LTec Engineering shares a building with our test, automation and laboratory teams, your tooling is designed by people who understand the whole process it sits inside — from solder-paste print to functional test to failure analysis. Mechanical, electrical, software, RF and lab science under one roof — no sub-supplier gaps.
Ergonomic, poka-yoke tooling for manual and semi-automated assembly cells — built for repeatable location and operator speed.
Custom carriers and pallets that improve process speed, reliability and throughput across your assembly line.
Precision stainless-steel stencils for accurate, repeatable solder-paste printing — cut, welded, engraved and AOI-certified in-house.
Medical device assembly is where LTec Engineering does its most demanding work. We design precision jigs, fixtures and benchtop stations that hold delicate components to micron tolerances, prevent operator error by design, and produce the traceable, validated process a regulated line requires. We support new product introduction (NPI) from first prototype through to a validated production cell — and we tailor the tooling to the device category, because a wearable flex panel and an implantable lead demand very different engineering.
Early-stage fixtures for first builds; design-for-manufacture and design-for-assembly feedback before the product is frozen.
Pilot-line jigs and benchtop stations that turn a manual prototype process into a repeatable one.
Tooling built and documented for IQ/OQ/PQ, with CE Machinery Directive files where the station is powered.
Multi-station cells, poka-yoke carriers and duplicate tooling for transfer to full-rate manufacture.
Device examples are illustrative of the categories LTec tools for; specific programme references are available on request and under NDA.
Continuous investment in laser, welding, engraving and inspection systems makes LTec one of the most capable stencil facilities in the region. Our laser cutter is built specifically for SMD stencil manufacture — cutting 20,000 apertures an hour across all industry-standard frame formats — while our step-welding system places welds to within 20 microns, creating super-flat, zero-distortion multilevel stencils as strong as the original foil.
Every stencil is finished with in-house laser engraving (process instructions, data-matrix and QR codes) and a final AOI inspection to detect any clogged aperture or debris before it's boxed. The result is repeatable print performance you can rely on, with quoted lead times most suppliers can't match.
Quick-turnaround precision stencils from our laser cutter and design software, all standard frame formats.
1 DAY LEADIn-house multilevel step stencils with super-flat 20-micron welds — no outsourcing, no distortion.
2 DAY LEADEvery stencil inspected for clogged apertures and debris before boxing — repeatable and reliable.
Process instructions, stencil information, data-matrix and QR codes engraved into the foil surface.
Improved paste release for small aperture area ratios, applied per customer order request.
Precise solder-paste deposits for rework and component replacement, including BGA work.
Component print fixtures and reballing tooling to locate and replace solder balls accurately.
Manufacture of small, precise components by laser — our newest area of expertise.
Site walk, process map, success criteria agreed.
Joint URS, risk register, scope frozen.
2–3 concepts, DFMEA, budget confirmed.
3D, electrical, software, design review.
Shop-floor build, FAT at our Dublin facility.
SAT, IQ/OQ support, training, hand-over.
We already work inside the QMS and audit culture of Tier-1 device OEMs — CE Machinery Directive technical files and DoC as standard.
Mechanical, electrical, software, RF and lab science — no sub-supplier gaps, design feedback in hours.
We reduce complexity before we add actuators. Fewer parts, lower cost, higher uptime.
Senior engineers stay on your programme end-to-end — no mid-project hand-off.
QTA laser-cut stencils have a one-day lead time; welded step stencils two days. Faster turnaround can be arranged for urgent production needs.
Yes — we use a high-resolution scanner to generate Gerber data from a bare PCB or film where design data isn't available, and accept data in many formats.
We build tooling and print-support nests for DEK, MPM, Ekra and Fuji systems among others, custom-made to fit your machines and engraved with part numbers.
Yes — flex-PCB carriers, selective and open-aperture wave pallets, adjustable carriers, vacuum nests and press-fit tooling are all designed and built in-house.
Yes — CE Machinery Directive technical files and Declarations of Conformity are provided as standard, with URS/FDS and IQ/OQ/PQ documentation support.
Send a drawing, a Gerber, a sample part or just the problem. An engineer will respond within one working day — whether that's a question, a follow-up call, a meeting or a visit to your site.
LTec Labs holds the periodic materials and quality evidence a regulated line depends on — microsection, SEM/EDX, X-ray and counterfeit screening — sampled against your plan and reported to IPC criteria, not opinion. We plug into your quality system at the qualification and monitoring stages and stay there, build after build. And when a board does come back from the field, the same lab that already knows your product finds out why.
The reactive job — a field return, a component that looks wrong, a regulator who wants proof — is real, and we do it well. But it isn't the core of the relationship. The core is the evidence your quality plan already requires you to produce: periodic solder-joint verification, plating, measurement, materials checks and counterfeit screening — sampled on a defined schedule and reported against recognised standards, so the file is complete before anyone asks to see it.
In our laboratory in Dublin, we apply SEM, X-ray, micro-sectioning and a deep materials toolkit to medical, automotive, defence and telecommunications hardware — across the full product lifecycle, from design verification to routine production monitoring to warranty-return investigation. The complete service catalogue, technique library and enquiry forms live on the dedicated site.
For the customers we work most closely with, LTec isn't a lab they call in an emergency — we're written into how the line is qualified and monitored. Our microsection and inspection work underpins development and design verification (DV) and operational and performance qualification (OQ/PQ) runs to an agreed sampling plan, producing the traceable, standards-referenced evidence auditors expect. That's the offer: scheduled conformance monitoring that sits inside your process, renewing build after build, so "show me the evidence" is a question you can already answer.
Embedded in OQ/PQ: cross-section and microsection work written into the operational and performance qualification of a high-volume assembly line, sampling per build — named in the qualification, not called in when something breaks.
A full product family under monitoring: cross-section conformance support across an entire product line and selected ECU assemblies, from design verification (DV) through process and production qualification.
REPRESENTATIVE PROGRAMMES, ANONYMISED UNDER CUSTOMER CONFIDENTIALITY.
BSD cross-section of a qualified solder joint — direct from the SEM, full resolution, no AI processing.
X-ray of a BGA under process monitoring — direct instrument export, uncompressed.
We're not a stage at the end of the line. We plug in wherever the process needs independent evidence — and most of those points repeat every build.
Real captures from the lab — the kind of imagery and cross-sections that accompany every report, so a finding is something you can see, not just read.
Eight core service lines spanning PCB and PCBA qualification, materials characterisation, counterfeit screening and failure investigation.
Microsection analysis of bare boards — plating integrity, layer registration and hole-wall quality.
IPC-6012Metallurgical microsection of assemblies for solder-joint and assembly conformance to Class 3 acceptance.
IPC-A-610 · Class 3Scheduled microsection verification through design verification (DV) and into ongoing process qualification (PQ) — the recurring evidence your quality policy depends on.
IPC-A-610 · DV / PQThickness, hardness and chemical make-up, with tensile and shear strength testing.
Metrology & mechanicalIndependent electronic component testing to detect counterfeit and substandard parts before they reach your line.
AS6081Characterisation for medical device, automotive, defence, telecommunications and IP-sensitive industries.
SEM/EDX · multi-industryTeardown and reverse engineering, circuit tracing and bill-of-materials reconstruction.
Teardown · BOMRoot-cause investigation of operational and field failures, with corrective-action evidence.
Root cause · fieldA deep bench of non-destructive, destructive and extended materials-analysis techniques — selected to match the question, not the other way round.
Submit samples, request a quotation or upload a statement of work through the dedicated lab site.
LTec Laboratory Services is ISO 9001:2015 certified by an INAB-accredited certification body, and every LTec division works within recognised quality frameworks — GAMP 5 validation, CE marking, IPC workmanship. We apply the level of formality your project actually needs — not more. Every deliverable leaves with its evidence attached, so when your quality team says "show me", you can.
Quality at LTec is not a final checkpoint — it is how work is structured from the first document. Four disciplines run through every project, in every division.
Every project runs on the LT- document system: requirement specs, design analysis reviews, drawings, test protocols and records all carry a controlled reference and revision history. Six months or six years later, the paper trail reads the same way.
Test and automation systems follow the full validation path — URS, FDS, design qualification, build, FAT and SAT, then IQ/OQ/PQ executed against pre-approved protocols. Documentation is written for ISO 13485 environments and the auditors who work in them.
Bespoke equipment is taken through the Machinery Directive route: EN ISO 12100 risk assessment from the concept stage, electrical safety to EN 60204-1, guarding and interlocks designed in — and a complete technical file and Declaration of Conformity handed over with the machine.
Calibrated instrumentation with traceable certificates, ESD-controlled assembly, workmanship inspected to IPC-A-610 — and an in-house laboratory that verifies to IPC and MIL standards when the question is contested. A result from LTec is a result you can stand behind.
LTec Laboratory Services is ISO 9001:2015 certified by an INAB-accredited certification body. Four practices define how every sample, image and report is handled.
Chain of custody and sample traceability — ID, handling, imaging conditions, and data provenance — are strictly maintained throughout. Every result traces back to a specific sample, instrument and setting.
Reports are structured around an agreed decision criterion, with PPAP-aligned evidence provided where relevant. You get an answer you can act on, not a folder of images to interpret yourself.
We build the evidence set around your protocol goals and risk management framework, rather than applying a one-size-fits-all approach — the level of formality your project actually needs, not more.
Solder joint and PCB inspection is carried out to IPC-A-610 and IPC-A-600. Counterfeit component screening follows AS6081, including in-house SEM/EDX material analysis.
| Standard / framework | Where it applies at LTec |
|---|---|
| ISO 9001:2015 | LTec Laboratory Services is certified by an INAB-accredited certification body. |
| GAMP 5 | Validation lifecycle for automated test and production systems delivered into regulated manufacturing. |
| 2006/42/EC · EN ISO 12100 · EN 60204-1 | CE marking of bespoke machinery: risk assessment, electrical safety, guarding, technical file and Declaration of Conformity. |
| ISO 13485 environments | Deliverables and documentation structured for medical device customers' quality systems and audits. |
| IPC-A-610 · IPC-A-600 · MIL standards | Solder joint and PCB workmanship acceptability in assembly, and independent inspection and analysis in the LTec laboratory. |
| AS6081 | Counterfeit component screening through Laboratory Services, including in-house SEM/EDX material analysis. |
A copy of the LTec quality pack — document templates, validation approach and example technical file structure — is available to customers on request.
Ask for the quality pack, or bring us the audit question that worries you most. A response within one working day — from an engineer, not an inbox.
Practical writing from the engineers who build the testers, cut the tooling and run the failure investigations — for the people who own a line, a launch or a quality problem. No gate, no fluff. Take what's useful.
Most functional test projects start in the wrong place: with the machine. Panel sizes, probe counts and rack layouts get decided while the most important question is still open — what, exactly, does this test have to prove?
The answer is a coverage model. List the failure modes that would actually hurt you in the field: opens and shorts, wrong or missing components, out-of-tolerance rails, firmware that boots but misbehaves, connectors that pass once and fail on the third insertion. Rank them by cost and likelihood. Then design a test sequence that catches the ones that matter, in an order that fails fast — cheap checks first, expensive ones only on boards that have earned them.
Only then does the tester get designed, because now it has a specification instead of a wish. The instrument set falls out of the measurements. The fixture falls out of the access points. The cycle time falls out of the sequence. And when your auditor asks why the test does what it does, the answer is a document, not a shrug.
The expensive parts of a functional tester — instrumentation, safety systems, control PC, software framework — are the parts that do not care which product they are testing. The product-specific parts — probes, wiring, supports, guarding — are comparatively cheap. Traditional one-product testers weld the two together, so every new product buys the expensive half again.
A cassette architecture separates them. The base station is bought once and amortised across the whole product family; each new product or variant needs only a new cassette. In practice that means the second product costs a fraction of the first, changeover on the line takes minutes instead of an afternoon of recabling, and operators keep one interface, one workflow and one training record across everything they test.
It also changes the risk profile. When a base station is shared, it gets soak-tested by every product that runs on it; faults surface early and get fixed once. And when a product reaches end of life, its cassette goes on a shelf — not a whole tester into a skip.
A board can pass optical inspection, pass electrical test, ship — and still come back from the field a year later. That is because the defects that kill boards slowly live inside the structure, where no camera looks: a plated barrel with a hairline crack that opens a little more with every thermal cycle; an intermetallic layer grown thick and brittle at a joint that measured perfectly at zero hours; black pad hiding under a solder ball that made contact just well enough to pass.
A microsection makes the invisible visible. The suspect area is cut, potted, ground and polished to the plane of interest, then examined — optically and, where the question demands it, under the SEM. Plating thickness, void content, intermetallic growth, crack initiation: measured, photographed and reported against IPC criteria, not opinion.
The practical value is in the second failure you prevent. One sectioned board that shows barrel cracking turns "random field returns" into "a specific drilling process problem at a specific supplier" — something you can fix, claim against, and screen for.
CE marking custom equipment has a reputation for arriving late in a project and eating the last month of the schedule. It earns that reputation only when it is treated as an end-of-project event instead of a design input.
The route itself is not mysterious. A bespoke test rig is machinery, so the Machinery Directive applies: a risk assessment to EN ISO 12100 identifies the hazards, electrical design follows EN 60204-1, and guarding and interlocks close out the risks the design cannot remove. The technical file — drawings, calculations, assessments, test evidence — is assembled as the work happens, and the Declaration of Conformity is signed at handover.
The schedule is lost, when it is lost, in the gap between "we built it" and "we can prove it is safe". Do the risk assessment before the frame is welded and the interlocks are a parts list, not a retrofit. Write the technical file as a project document from day one and the final step is a signature, not an archaeology project.
These notes come from real projects. If yours is the next one — a launch to test, a line to tool, a failure to explain — tell us about it. An engineer responds within one working day.