Jim, it is just my opinion, but well-designed equipment does not have much risk of failure for the majority of the tests. The one test that is worth some investment is an ESD test device. I believe that this is the most commonly-failed test and often the most difficult to correct without some insight. The remainder of the equipment you will need will cost about $60,000 and given that you may spend test money at a laboratory anyway is likely not worth it unless you are a very big manufacturer that can benefit from ISO 9000:2000 without doing the 3rd party testing. As a minimum, you are likely going to have to deal with calibration and service issues and the delays associated with them.
A suite of testing runs about $6000 for immunity for ITE equipment to meet EN 55 024 without even talking about the Radiated Immunity requirements equipment and a chamber. You are going to likely have to do this subset of testing anyway if you want a credible report as evidence of self-declaration. The costs of emissions and immunity testing with reports is around $7000 and is a clean approach both financially and in timeline if you do some chamber tests first for emissions, say a 2-hour scan in a chamber. Emissions and immunity testing are somewhat coupled in that a device that is a low radiator is also likely to have good resistance to susceptibility, but not always. This is most often true of metal shielded enclosures and those with shielded I/O cables.
If you want to give me a call I'll share what I know. Warren Birmingham Epsilon-Mu Consultants (510) 793-4806 email: war...@epsilon-mu.com website: http://www.epsilon-mu.com On Monday, Sep 23, 2002, at 14:44 US/Pacific, Jim Eichner wrote:
We are starting to look into the costs and issues around gearing up for some immunity testing, with the intent of determining whether or not it is too hard or too expensive to gear up to do some of it "at home". We arenot looking for final formal compliance results here, only for pre-compliance peace of mind. In particular, I need to consider the following:1. EFT (EN61000-4-4) - AC input, output, and ground lines, DC input andoutput lines, signal/control lines2. Surges (EN 61000-4-5) - AC input, output, and ground lines, DC inputand output lines, signal/control lines 3. Surges (SAE J1113/11) on DC power leads 4. Fast transients (SAE J1113/12) on other than power leads The products which we hope to be able to test in-house are power conversion and control products, and have a wide range of input/output voltages and power:- AC inputs up to 120V, 60A, or 230Vac, 30A single-phase, 120/240V, 50A,split-phase, and 120/208V, 30A, 3-phase - AC outputs up to 120Vac, 60A, 230Vac, 30A, 120/240V, 50A split-phase - DC inputs up to 12V, 500A; 24V, 300A; 48V, 200A - DC outputs up to 12kW at 10 - 600Vdc (1200A - 20A) Questions:1. Is there any single piece of equipment (with accessories/modules/etc.) available that can do both Surge and EFT tests on equipment, or are thesetests just too different? 2. Surge - Is there any single piece of equipment (withaccessories/modules/etc.) available that can do surges on all these types of ports: AC and DC and signal/control? Any info re mfr, cat. no., price,etc. would be appreciated. 3. EFT - Is there any single piece of equipment (withaccessories/modules/etc.) available that can do EFT on all these types of ports: AC and DC and signal/control? Any info re mfr, cat. no., price,etc. would be appreciated. 4. Do these tests have to be run at full output (which may limit myability to find 3rd party labs with suitable equipment, let alone gear up in-house) or can they be run with a light load on the equipment and then test full output after each test to confirm return to normal operation?Thanks in advance for your help, Jim Eichner, P.Eng. Regulatory Compliance Manager Xantrex Technology Inc. e-mail: jim.eich...@xantrex.com web: www.xantrex.com Any opinions expressed are those of my invisible friend, who really exists. Honest. No, really.Confidentiality Notice: This email message, including any attachments, is for the sole use of the intended recipient(s) and may contain confidential and privileged information. Any unauthorized review, use, disclosure or distribution is prohibited. If you are not the intended recipient, please contact the sender by reply e-mail and destroy all copies of the originalmessage.------------------------------------------- This message is from the IEEE EMC Society Product Safety Technical Committee emc-pstc discussion list. Visit our web site at: http://www.ewh.ieee.org/soc/emcs/pstc/ 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: Ron Pickard: emc-p...@hypercom.com Dave Heald: davehe...@attbi.com For policy questions, send mail to: Richard Nute: ri...@ieee.org Jim Bacher: j.bac...@ieee.org All emc-pstc postings are archived and searchable on the web at: http://ieeepstc.mindcruiser.com/ Click on "browse" and then "emc-pstc mailing list"
------------------------------------------- This message is from the IEEE EMC Society Product Safety Technical Committee emc-pstc discussion list. Visit our web site at: http://www.ewh.ieee.org/soc/emcs/pstc/ 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: Ron Pickard: emc-p...@hypercom.com Dave Heald: davehe...@attbi.com For policy questions, send mail to: Richard Nute: ri...@ieee.org Jim Bacher: j.bac...@ieee.org All emc-pstc postings are archived and searchable on the web at: http://ieeepstc.mindcruiser.com/ Click on "browse" and then "emc-pstc mailing list"
