I should have been a bit less negative about fluorescent lights. Certainly, you can wire several fluorescent fixtures in your room to a switch, so that you can take advantage of their inherent glare-free quality and the fact that they produce much less heat. When the power is switched off, they will be completely harmless to your chamber environment. The down side to this is that, sooner or later, you will forget to turn them off and will ruin a data scan or two.
Regarding fire hazards in general (even from the EUT frying itself). I always like to add a honeycomb RF vent panel next to the location of the test technician's station. There are times when it's very handy to be able to hear the EUT in operation, to hear warning signals, and simply to be able to smell the inside of the chamber. It's also a handy place to route a fiberoptic cable or two, and a good place to route a string (I like waxed cable lacing cord) if you need to be able to "push" a reset button. (One of my recent programs involves a combat helmet-mounted electronics pack, which shuts itself off after 45 seconds if it doesn't detect any physical movement of the soldier. So we have to keep "waking it up" throughout the testing program.) Regards, Ed -----Original Message----- From: Ken Javor [mailto:ken.ja...@emccompliance.com] Sent: Thursday, January 25, 2001 11:15 PM To: Price, Ed; 'marti...@appliedbiosystems.com'; emc-p...@majordomo.ieee.org Subject: Re: Lights for 3-meter Chamber One caveat. If you are on a budget for a room, fluorescents can be very handy in that they don't add nearly to the heat load that needs to be removed like incandescents. You need enough incandescents to light the room sufficiently when the fluorescents are turned off during an RE test. ---------- >From: "Price, Ed" <ed.pr...@cubic.com> >To: "'marti...@appliedbiosystems.com'" <marti...@appliedbiosystems.com>, emc-p...@majordomo.ieee.org >Subject: RE: Lights for 3-meter Chamber >Date: Thu, Jan 25, 2001, 9:23 AM > > > > > > -----Original Message----- > From: marti...@appliedbiosystems.com > [mailto:marti...@appliedbiosystems.com] > Sent: Wednesday, January 24, 2001 6:15 PM > To: emc-p...@majordomo.ieee.org > Subject: Lights for 3-meter Chamber > > > > We are setting up a 3-meter chamber to do some pre-compliance measurements. > What are the best low emissions lights to purchase for this chamber. > Please be specific as to manufacturer and models. > > Thanks > > Joe Martin > Applied Biosystems > > > ------------------------------------------- > > The choice for internal chamber lighting is still simply incandescent bulbs. > Avoid anything that uses fluorescent lights, and also avoid any electronic > ballast or driver circuitry. > > Incandescent lamps within chambers have a reputation for burning out > quickly. This is because they are turned on and off so much (I turn mine off > whenever I close the chamber door), and also because the lights are operated > off of filtered power. When the lights are off, there is often very little > load on the output side of the room filters, causing a slight voltage rise. > Thus, the lights are turned on usually with a slightly high nominal voltage > condition. > > You can use expensive "traffic light" lamps, or you may find some industrial > bulbs rated for 130V or so. My position is ordinary light bulbs are cheap. I > just keep a case handy, and I bought one of those extension wands so that I > can change a bulb without even getting a ladder. > > I also installed a couple of 150W floodlights, so that I can switch them on > to help my digital camera's flash when I take pictures. (The anechoic wall > treatment really soaks up the available light; I usually force the camera up > the equivalent of two "f-stops", even with the floodlights.) > > Regards, > > Ed > > Ed Price ed.pr...@cubic.com Electromagnetic Compatibility Lab Cubic Defense Systems San Diego, CA. USA 858-505-2780 (Voice) 858-505-1583 (Fax) Military & Avionics EMC Services Is Our Specialty Shake-Bake-Shock - Metrology - Reliability Analysis ------------------------------------------- This message is from the IEEE EMC Society Product Safety Technical Committee emc-pstc discussion list. To cancel your subscription, send mail to: majord...@ieee.org with the single line: unsubscribe emc-pstc For help, send mail to the list administrators: Jim Bacher: jim_bac...@mail.monarch.com Michael Garretson: pstc_ad...@garretson.org For policy questions, send mail to: Richard Nute: ri...@ieee.org
