Hi everybody,
thank you all for participating and donating your experience and
views. I have been out of the office for a week and then I was
overwhelmed by the number of responses, so it took me some time to
write this reply.
I want to make some things more clear, and comment on some of the
suggestions.
1. I never suggested that the "big name" PC makers are deliberately
selling us non-compliant computers. I think they do their best but
they tend to put more weight on cost, aesthetic appearance and ease of
assembly then on lasting EMC performance.
I never tested PC's as they come "out of the box", and frankly I am
only interested in testing them after they have been configured to
Scitex's needs.
2. In my opinion it is not practical to keep a "golden PC" in the lab.
First, I do not have the budget for it. Second, if you keep it long
enough it becomes irrelevant, since models are changing and R&D always
tries to stay ahead and develop for the fastest computers available.
So I have to get a full system each time I start testing. (I believe
this is even more so for an independent testing lab).
3. The same applies for "golden cables". Since we sell a full system,
I check it with the same cables we intend to ship. (And we do find
cable problems in many cases.)
4. I hope the "big name" PC makers EMC engineers are also listening in
on us (some have also commented). I know they are doing their best in
better electronic design (e.g. multipoint grounding of the main board
- something I saw on some new PC's) and I don't think I can personally
help much in this area. I think we should help them convince their
bosses it is required to put a higher priority on the long term EMC
performance (i.e. mechanical packaging design).
thank you all again for your cooperation
moshe valdman
mgr - EMC, Safety, Reliability and Components Engineering
Scitex Israel
PS
I was actually afraid my original letter was too "flaming". But then I
found out there were many people out there who were even more mad
about this then me. So maybe we can try to influence things a bit.
