Ray-Ran Manual Advanced Falling Dart Impact Tester

Brought to you by Ray-Ran, our plastics and polymers testing specialist brand, our manual falling dart impact tester measures the energy that causes thin flexible materials to fail.

Impact tester for flexible materials

The Ray-Ran Manual Advanced Falling Dart Impact Tester provides simpler method for determining the energy that causes thin flexible materials such as plastic film, paper and composite sheets to fail under specified conditions of impact from a free-falling dart.

The energy required to cause Initial Failure to the test specimen is expressed in terms of the darts weight which would result in the failure of 50% of specimens being tested. The instrument complies with the ASTM D1709 Method A & B and ISO 7765 part 1.

Advanced and easy-to-use impact tester

Utilizing on-board microprocessor technology, the microprocessor controlled Advanced Falling Dart Impact Tester has taken falling dart testing machines to an advanced level at an affordable price. Built with operator simplicity in mind, its ease of operation and high accuracy makes it ideal for product development and quality control within production, research & development labs and teaching institutions.

The large on-board liquid crystal display (LCD) provides simple on-screen instruction and using the alpha/numeric membrane keypad test parameters such as usernames, material reference numbers, batch numbers and dart types are entered and stored in operator lists for future recall and results presentation. Selecting the type of test is done at the press of a button and the testing parameters such as drop height; dart weight and sample size are entered to give the required testing conditions.

The instrument is floor standing with a telescopic arm for adjusting the dart drop height between the 660mm, method A drop height and the 1524mm, method B drop height.
Supplied as standard is the 1½” spherical radius tup for Method A testing, with the 2″ spherical radius Method B darts and weights being sold separately.

The dart release mechanism is pneumatically actuated and requires the use of both hands to release the dart to ensure maximum operator safety. A clamp guard is also supplied to ensure the operators safety from falling and rebounding darts which can be removed for easy dart retrieval.

Repeatable and reliable impact testing

The methods of holding the test specimen and releasing the dart are designed so that they may be accurately repeated for each test performed. Test specimens are simply clamped in the unique two-piece clamp system which gives a constant tension across the surface area of the specimen ensuring test repeatability. A dart of a known weight is then allowed to free fall and hit the sample. The addition or removal of known weights determine the Initial failure of the sample.

‘Fails’ and ‘Non-fails’ are stored and automatically plotted then calculated to give the final result making the test easier for the operator.

Dependable software

The apparatus is supplied as standard with Ray-Ran’s advanced Techni-Test Windows based PC software for connection to the apparatus via a mini USB or ethernet connection.

Test results can be printed directly from the Techni-Test software or can be saved and exported as .CSV files which can be opened with Microsoft Excel in tabular form which can be manipulated to your specific requirements such as preparing a graphical presentation or copying the results to a Word document for a report presentation if required.

Optional ancillaries

• Method B dart – 2″ (50.8mm) stainless steel
• Method B weight set – 2 x 15g, 8 x 45g, 8 x 90g
• Stainless stell, Phenolic, Aluminium and Tuffnol darts

Impact testing expertise

This is one of the many impact testing solutions we can offer for material testing needs. We also have a number of handy articles in our knowledgebase that you may find useful. For example, check out our article on Falling Dart Impact Testing to ASTM D1709, or a detailed look at our Instrumented Falling Weight Impact Tester for fast results.