Interview with Datest’s Robert A. Boguski, Jr.

 Datest features a wide variety of testing, engineering, training, and value-added services all geared toward speed and flexibility. Combining the right test platforms with tailored services enables Datest to design a unique, efficient, integrated test solution that is appropriate for each client’s needs and budget. Based in Fremont, CA, Datest is an ITAR-registered, ISO9001- and AS9100-certified provider of advanced, integrated PCBA testing and inspection services, serving the CM/EMS as well as the OEM community since 1984. In 2018, Datest partnered with VJ Technologies (VJT) on a West Coast inspection services center, showroom and demonstration facility. Since that time, the company has been busy expanding its reach and offering new services, including CT scanning. We checked in with Datest President Robert A. Boguski, Jr. to see how this partnership is affecting his company, how the CT scanner is growing his business, and where he thinks Datest will be in the future.

Rob, we understand that Datest recently celebrated its two-year anniversary of the opening of the West Coast Inspection/Demo Room with VJ Technologies. Congratulations. Can you tell us a little about this partnership with VJT and how it came to be?

Datest and VJ Technologies have been imaging technology partners since 2017. Our West Coast inspection and demonstration service opened officially for business in January 2018. We have known each other for years, from a distance, but the relationship became really serious in early 2017, as Datest was seeking to diversify its X-ray capabilities and respond to other requirements beyond its historical — bread-and-butter, if you will — PCBA failure analysis services. When one hangs out a shingle, offering fast failure analysis of PCBAs, inevitably engineers bring other stuff, hoping we can image that stuff as well. After five years of offering PCBA failure analysis, that trickle of unorthodox stuff requiring imaging support became a flood, and that flood evolved, serendipitously, into a business. VJT offered interest, expertise, ready-made and adaptable equipment, as well as nonstop support to our expanded product offerings. They were a natural fit for Datest.

Since then we haven’t looked back. We’ve processed hundreds of orders through Datest’s VJT 225kV Microfocus CT Scanning System. Customers needing our support have come from additive manufacturing, aerospace, materials science, medical/biotechnology, instrumentation, automotive, commercial, space flight, robotics, colleges and universities, as well as traditional electronics sectors. Those applications needing higher X-ray energies than our system provides can be referred to VJT facilities on the East Coast, where systems with X-ray energies as high as 9MeV are available for certain exotic or demanding projects.

Additionally, we’ve participated in many joint marketing activities with our VJT Partners. These include technical seminars, trade shows, white papers, social media promotions and Webinars. Last September our two companies jointly hosted a seminar on advances in digital imaging technology together with the ASNT (American Society for Nondestructive Testing) Golden Gate Chapter. We had five speakers and 62 attendees for a half-day event. This is just one example, among many. The list, and the opportunities for new applications, and ways to show them, keeps growing. That’s the beauty of this business.

The CT scanner sounds like an interesting piece of equipment. Please describe its capabilities for our readers.

CT stands for computed tomography. Tomography is a radiological technique that produces an image of a plane of interest. Computational tomography involves the use of computers to calculate and create images of multiple planes, viewed from multiple images and angles, thus creating an expanded and visually more accurate representation of the object of interest. Tomographic imaging has existed for more than 100 years, but it took the processing power of digital computers, and the latest high-speed microprocessors, to move to the next step and create reliable 3D images in real time.

So, think of the process as 3D X-ray, in which we create multiple images of the same object while it rotates. Once a 360° revolution is complete, rendering software compiles those images into a three-dimensional model, which then can be viewed, and manipulated, using software for purposes of analysis. 

The principles of CT scanning are the same, regardless of the system used. For medical CT scanning, the patient is the object of interest, and the X-ray source and detector rotate around the stationary body of the patient to create the 3D diagnostic image. For industrial CT scanning, which Datest and VJT do daily, the object rotates, while the X-ray source and detector maintain preset distances to the object, depending upon the magnification, depth of field, and resolution needed for the particular application.

Datest has a rather large CT scanning system for the electronics industry. Our machine can handle objects as large as 1 m x 1 m, and as heavy as 50 kg (110 lb.). So, obviously, we produce images for many objects besides PCBAs. Once the smoke signal goes forth that you operate a big imaging system, engineers come running with all manner of things to image. It’s kind of seductive that way.

What specific benefits does the scanning service bring to your customers? Have you found that you’ve gained customers because of the CT scanner?

CT scanning often is the only means of seeing and isolating certain product defects. This is especially true if the problematic item or area is embedded within a larger system or assembly. Sticking with our home base of electronics, many times PCBAs are installed in higher-level assemblies, and those higher-level assemblies are themselves housed in sheet metal and other enclosures or encapsulated by potting material, or both. The original board, or boards, are encased in a larger, far more complex system. This becomes a potential nightmare when the complete system fails, either during final test or, worse, while in service in the field. That’s where we come in.

The customer can send us the compete module, and if it can be accommodated by the physical and geometric/optical limitations of our system, we likely can help to identify the root cause of failure. Completely nondestructively. Think of the time and money saved from not having to tear the system apart to get at the source of failure.

If, for some reason, the object exceeds the physical limitations of our system, then our friends at VJT can back us up with larger systems appropriate to the task. Because of this flexibility, it’s rare that we say no to a project for reasons of size or material composition/thickness.

In addition to an increased customer base, what impact has the system had on Datest? Do you foresee the benefits continuing over the next few years? 

Having a CT scanning system brings many interesting opportunities. Word gets around quickly, as already mentioned, and engineers show up will all sorts of projects, hoping we’ll help them get to the bottom of what ails their project. Some items we are knowledgeable about; others we frankly haven’t a clue about. These last projects are the fun ones because we’re honest with the customer about our ignorance, and we’re equally honest about our willingness to learn. We’ll declare straight up that if the customer is willing to spend some time with us, teaching us their product or their process and what matters to them from an inspection standpoint, then we are equally willing to give some of our time to make sure we can give them what they’re looking for and develop a process to handle it. Many long-term business relationships have been spawned using this approach, and we’ve learned a lot in the doing! We’ve also helped to settle a lot of disputes.

In your opinion, what are the most interesting things customers have brought you to scan?

Three years ago, a gentleman brought us a fossil (or what he thought was a fossil) to scan. It was an item that had been dug up years ago on some family property and had been the centerpiece of an ongoing argument in his family ever since. He was retired, and had the time to do the research and attempt to resolve the dispute. We gave him good quality images to take to a university paleontologist for review and, hopefully, a determination as to whether it was prehistoric or just pre-2020.

Additionally, recently a fellow brought us a disassembled French horn for scanning. He wanted to digitize the component parts of the horn, using images provided by CT scanning. Prior to this, the only existing documentation was on paper and 100 years old. Now he has a digital archive of the instrument, as proof of concept. Eventually we’ll probably scan every instrument in the orchestra!

Projects like these are enjoyable. They are cool to work on, and we learn something. What’s not to like?

Does the COVID 19 crisis present challenges to how you operate the system? Are you able to help businesses with projects whose work has been designated “essential?”

Yes, there are challenges. Presently, as I’m doing this interview, we are operating under a Bay Area-wide shelter-in-place order, scheduled to be lifted May 31. That lifting may or may not happen on that date. At this stage, I’m not certain. Meanwhile we observe CDC, state and local guidelines and mandates in terms of personal space and social distancing, hygiene, and minimizing face-to-face contact with visitors. Meetings usually conducted in our conference room are now held in video format.

Meanwhile, we are running essential business, or that which is deemed essential for aerospace/defense, medical, or critical national infrastructure applications. All of which keeps us plenty busy.

Do you think the pandemic will change the way we do business moving forward? How so? How will Datest adapt? 

Yes I do. First, more people will continue to work from home. They’ve discovered either they like it, or their companies like it, or both (the latter reaping the benefit of not having to pay rent or mortgage on smaller facilities). So digital interaction will continue as it has these past two months and likely will increase. This probably will contribute to increased speed of projects’ fulfillment, driving demand for faster turnaround time, which plays directly into one of Datest’s strengths. “Getting it done” with a minimum of fuss and bureaucracy will become even more important, and we already operate comfortably in that world. Bring it on.

It sounds like the ideal customer is anyone with a problem that needs it fixed quickly. Do you also work with colleges or universities? In what capacity? 

Our key customer profile is an engineer with a big problem, with dwindling time to solve it and lots of pressure to obtain answers sooner rather than later. We’re talking days, not weeks, and sometimes hours, not days. We understand that, and we are configured to operate under that pressure. Most customers come through our door with a frown or a furrowed brow and leave at the end of a project with a sense of relief that, at the very least, they have a clearer picture of the root cause of their problem. A sense of direction matters.

Yes, we work with colleges and universities, especially those lacking the tools we have. We help them complete various research projects in many different engineering and technical disciplines. Once again, we enjoy collaborating with researchers in labs and colleges and welcome the opportunity to support them in their work in any reasonable way we can. The same goes for labs and other institutes who need ongoing quick-turnaround support.

Based on what you’ve said, the CT scanner provides solutions to many challenges, even outside our electronics manufacturing industry. Would the automotive industry find the scanner helpful? If so, what are some problematic areas in which it could help?

Automotive manufacturers and their first- and second- tier suppliers can benefit greatly from the failure analysis and reliability analysis capabilities of CT scanning and the viewing and analytical software we use to process CT images. Examples include porosity analysis of castings; structural analysis of mechanical parts such as differentials, gears and gear housings; and LIDAR assemblies and enclosures.

What about for the space industry? What applications might someone in this segment find the CT scanning service useful for?

For what should be obvious reasons, reliability in spaceflight is critical. We have yet to find an economical way to set up service stations and repair depots in earth orbit. Meanwhile, the laws of physics aren’t being repealed. So the next best thing is to subject hardware to critical scrutiny, for which CT scanning is a useful tool. In our practice, we look at various pieces of flight hardware that have endured multiple missions, and provide CT scanning data to help hardware providers make better decisions about whether to risk using a veteran module for another mission or not. We are a small cog in a very big wheel, but we’re proud of our modest contribution.

How about agriculture? Would this industry find the scanning technology useful? Why?

Surprisingly, yes. Two years ago, we did a project for the University of California Merced in which we CT scanned tangerines. We were supporting a research project devoted to disease propagation and eradication, and genetic modifications of certain citrus hybrids in support of better crop yields. Another good example of something we were ignorant of at the beginning of the project, but enlightened at the end: We provided the scan data for agricultural research scientists, which they incorporated in their studies. We love projects like this.

Is there anything else you’d like our readers to know about the CT scanner or the West Coast Demo Facility?

Yes. If the material will admit X-rays, then we can scan it. Even if the object is too big for our system, our colleagues at VJT have bigger systems. Likewise, if the X-ray energies needed for a given project exceed the limits of our Microfocus CT system, then our friends at VJT have higher energy systems, starting at 450kV and going all the way up to 9MeV for highly specialized, so-called high-energy applications. No project is too large or too difficult to consider.