How to test electronics:

highly accelerated life test (HALT): Environmental stresses are applied in a HALT procedure,
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eventually

reaching a level significantly beyond that expected during use. Failure rate data used to characterize any device in a product must correlate with the stress levels in the product or application. Temperature cycling and repetitive shock, power margining and power cycling are the most common forms of failure acceleration for electronic equipment. It is a method used in industry. Humidity, physical strain. weibull analysis

Does it look robustly designed? Are there obvious mechanical stress points? Is there proper strain relief wherever something flexes? Are all the datasheet limits carefully adhered to in all possible corners of normal operation with some reasonable margin? Does the design handle the obvious expected abuse? This is both mechanical like someone yanking on it or stepping on any part of it, and electrical like ESD shocks.

Failure Mode and Effects Analysis (FMEA) was one of the first systematic techniques for failure analysis. It was developed by reliability engineers in the 1950s to study problems that might arise from malfunctions of military systems.

Consider every physical property, e.g. voltage, current, temperature (in and out of service), vibration, power, duty cycle, mechanical shock, etc.

MTBF mean time between failures

Soldering processes
Dip soldering is a small-scale soldering process by which electronic componentsare soldered to a printed circuit board (PCB) to form an electronic assembly. Reflow soldering is a process in which a solder paste (a sticky mixture of powdered solder and flux) is used to temporarily attach one or several electrical components to their contact pads, after which the entire assembly is subjected to controlled heat, which melts the solder, permanently connecting the joint.

Wave soldering: The name is derived from the use of waves of molten solder to attach metal components to
the PCB.

Ultrasonic soldering is process that uses ultrasonic energy to solder materials

Finish and Quality:

Quality depends on proper temperatures when heating and on properly treated surfaces.

Defect

Possible causes

Effects

Cracks

Mechanical Stress

Loss of Conductivity

Contaminated surface Cavities Lack of flux Insufficient preheating

Reduction in strength Poor conductivity

Susceptible to stress Wrong solder temperature Wrong solder thickness Too thin for current load Wrong conveyor speed Undesired bridging between paths Poor Conductor Contaminated solder Product Failures

Thermal Profiling: is a complex set of time-temperature data typically associated with an objected heat up and
cool down.