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Titan CAI - Introduction
Electrostatic Discharge
Electrostatic Discharge (ESD) occurs when a static charge builds up on
either yourself or the Titan hardware, and then you touch the Titan hardware.
The static spark can be so small that you don’t feel it, however, it can flaw a
semiconductor. These flaws may generate an immediate failure, or, in most
cases, cause a slight reduction in performance which will continue to degrade,
eventually leading to failure of the hardware. When you feel a static shock,
you are experiencing a minimum of 3,000 volts of electricity.
Even though the input connectors have protection to prevent ESD damage,
it is good practice to always ground yourself and the Titan hardware while
connecting and removing sensors.
Always use approved ESD handling procedures to prevent ESD damage.
Grounding Titans
In general, grounding the Titan hardware to the test vehicle or test structure
will usually reduce noise pickup.
All of the analog inputs of the Titan hardware have a return path to ground.
However, it is very important that each senor have only one return path to
avoid ground loops. When testing a vehicle, often the vehicle chassis and
Titan can have very large ground imbalances of one or two volts. In such
situations, ground the senors to Titan and use differential inputs across the
sensor. A totally floating input (like a 9-Volt battery) must have one side
grounded at the point where used, either grounded to Titan or connected to the
vehicle chassis ground via a resistor (e.g. 10K ohm).
If there is a possibility that a floating sensor may be occasionally grounded,
install a 10K ohm resistor from the minus input to Titan ground. When the
sensor is floating, the 10K ohm resistance will reference it to Titan ground,
and when it is grounded, the resistor will allow the direct minus input wire to
reference the remote chassis ground.
Specific Warnings
1. When using a power adapter with the Titan, always connect the adapter
to the Titan before applying power. Never hot plug a Titan device under any
circumstances - hot plugging may damage the device!
2. Under no conditions should the 12V and 5V lines on the Titan hardware be
shorted together or connected directly to ground.
General Guidelines and Warnings
