For reasons of economy and simplicity, a test strategy know as "hot-mockup" can be employed for initial engineering design verification or for testing an initial low-run number of factory production units.

A hot-mockup consists of all parts of a top level assembly, often constructed with sub-assemblies fully exposed in order to facilitate component access and probing.

One sub-assembly is removed from the set of "gold" sub-assemblies, then like untested sub-assemblies are installed, tested, and routed for final assembly.

In the above images, a customer required a test for a pre-programmed embedded controller. However, due to FDA requirements, they could not redesign the board to accommodate a required socket. As designed, a socket would not fit on a the "gold" UUT.  We developed this innovative and low cost fixture to transfer all controller signals to the "gold" UUT via pogo-pins. This design also has the advantage of allowing quick replacement of the "gold" board, should it fail.