  We have developed a vacuum chamber and control system for rapid testing of
microfabricated surface ion traps. Our system is modular in design and is based
on an in-vacuum printed circuit board with integrated filters. We have used
this system to successfully trap and cool barium ions and have achieved ion
'dark' lifetimes of 31.6 s +- 3.4 s with controlled shuttling of ions. We
provide a detailed description of the ion trap system including the in-vacuum
materials used, control electronics and neutral atom source. We discuss the
challenges presented in achieving a system which can work reliably over two
years of operations in which the trap under test was changed at least 10 times.
