Robert Re: the following definitions: EN 55011 2.1 ISM equipment; ISM appliance Equipment or appliances designed to generate and/or use locally radio-frequency energy for industrial, scientific, medical, domestic or similar purposes. Excluding applications in the field of telecommunications and information technology and other applications; covered by other CISPR publications. FCC Part 18.107 (c) Industrial, scientific and medical (ISM) equipment. Equipment or appliance designed to generate and use locally RF energy for industrial, scientific, medical, domestic or similar purposes., excluding applications in the field of telecommunications. Typical ISM applications are the production of physical, biological, or chemical effects such as heating, ionization of gases, mechanical vibrations, hair removal and acceleration of charged particles. Some people have interpreted ISM devices as anything which generates RF energy and is used in a medical setting. For example: 1) a computer that analyzes blood samples (because it generates and uses RF energy internally - a clock oscillator) and 1) a monitor that uses a low power transmitter to relay patient temperature to a remote monitor. The second example is identical in function to a sensor on my back porch that uses RF to relay the temperature to a monitor on my desk. Would this device be reclassified from FCC Part 15 subpart B to FCC part 18 if I strapped the sensor to my wrist? In my opinion, ISM designation should be reserved for devices where the RF is an essential function of the device such as heating, etc. Secondary uses such as an RF link or clock oscillators would be excluded by the phrases "excluding applications in the field of telecommunications" and "covered by other CISPR publications". In addition, the RF link is not an essential function as it could be accomplished by infrared, acoustic, or even a wire link. The essential function is measurement. On the other hand, if the measurement were made by measuring the RF characteristics of some material, then the RF would be an essential function of the device. Am I splitting too fine a hair? Robert Seay ------------------------------------------- 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"
