Continue large test sequence next day

[Moduler]

Hello,

we are using TestStand 3.0 and LV7.1 to test power supplies in our production. Time for the complete test is more than one hour. Therefore it is necessary to break the test in the night and continue next morning.
Is there a possibility to call the test sequence and to continue next morning at the step where break in the night.
Normally the operator calls the complete sequence and start again.

Point of view to save cost we are looking for a solution to manage this in TestStand.
Can any one help?

regards Erich

[Dennis_Knutson]

Is your sequence a bunch of individual steps or a just a couple of VIs that take a long time to execute? If the former, you could add a SequenceFilePostStep callback that checks the current time of day. If later than whatever you specify, it could turn off UUT power and display a message popup with a button to click to continue. This would pause the sequence and when clicked, turn UUT power back on and resume where you left off. You could also create a sub-sequence that you call after or prior to every test that does the same thing. If you need to interupt a VI in the middle of a test, you'll probably have to add some code that monitors the current time and puts the VI in a pause mode. If you're using a state machine architecture, this shouldn't be too hard. Other types of design like a for loop with a fixed number of iterations, might make it more difficult.

[Moduler]

Hello Dennis,
the test sequence consists of around 25 sub sequences and within there other sequences.
What we want to achieve is to stop the test sequence when the shift is finished in the night and next morning the new operator can continue the test with next step in the test sequence and not repeat the test already done by the previous shift.
Is there a method when calling the test sequence to jump to last executed subsequence and continue the test.

Thanks for your help

regards Erich

[Dennis_Knutson]

Both methods I described will return to the next step or next sequence call. After running one of your sub-sequences now, doesn't TestStand return to the next step? Do a simple experiment. Create a sequence called "Pause". In this sequence, put a a pop-up. Place a call to the new sequence after any of your steps. When the sub-sequence is called, you'll get the pop-up and when you click the OK button, you'll return to the next step in your sequence. Now, instead of a just a pop-up, add some code to check the current time and skip the pop-up if it's not the end of the shift. Instead of a pop-up, you could instead, go into a while or for loop that again checks the current time but doesn't exit until it's start of the shift. It all depends on whether you want a person actually there to resume the test or for it to resume automatically. Personally, I would prefer to do the post step callback so that I wouldn't have to add a sequence call after step but that's up to you.