Chris, what standards did the keyboard and mouse manufacturer(s) test to? Try contacting the manufacturer directly and requesting the full EMC test report, including the ESD test setup. Sometimes this is a real pain in the tail to get hold of for such low dollar equipment, but it sounds like you can't afford to waste any more time hoping the next brand of peripheral will make the grade. Just make sure they send you the full report with setups, and hopefully photos.
If the report is satisfactory, indicating passing air discharge at 8kV without interrupts, then you are on your way. If you still cannot reproduce the passing result, and you have determined that your company's product is not the susceptible part of the system, then you will have some questions for the peripheral's test lab. Good luck, Chet Summers Pelco -----Original Message----- From: Chris Maxwell [mailto:chris.maxw...@nettest.com] Sent: Tuesday, April 02, 2002 1:42 PM To: EMC-PSTC Internet Forum Subject: Keyboards/Mice Well, I've stumbled over one of my pet peeves again. We had a combination keyboard/touchpad (CE marked) which failed ESD testing a couple of months ago. It would either give false inputs or become unresponsive when 8KV air discharges were made to the touchpad. I tried ferrites at both ends of the cable...no luck. Since we don't make the keyboard, I can't open it up and make changes. (although I would like to open it up with a sledgehammer...that would make some changes) So, we bought another brand. This one has a keyboard and trackball. Our hope was that the trackball would be more zap-proof than the touch pad....No dice...snap, crackle, pop it fails too. Oh, by the way, this keyboard was prominently CE marked as well. We make devices that cost $50,000 with space age technology and enough software to stuff a king size comforter. I can ESD test them in three hours....then I spend days, weeks, months, years retesting, buying different brands and sending emails to the EMC-PSTC because the *%@&*#&, CE marked $50 keyboard or $10 mouse that I hook up to it locks up. (OK Chris...breath deeply now...imagine a nice sunny day, you're walking through a field of poppies....ahhhh I feel better.) What am I missing here? I have heard that some people test with an "artificial hand" on the keyboard to represent the user. Do I need such a device? I have read in some standards (IEC 60870-2-1) where "operator reset" is allowed for "man-machine interface". Sadly, we don't use this standard for most of our products...we use EN 61326-1. Boy, would I love to have that as an option. Have the writers of IEC 60870-2-1 done some testing and found out what I have already found out? Should I just use the keyboard without ESD testing it, shrug my shoulders and say "Hey! we don't make it and it's CE marked isn't it?" Is there some kind of unspoken, unwritten performance criteria for keyboards and mice that essentially says that lockups are OK? I know that I've asked this question before. But I've never really gotten an answer to my satisfaction. And further testing on my own has proven fruitless. I sense that there is some piece of information that I'm missing. I'd rather not play keyboard roulette and buy 20 different brands and test them all in hopes of finding one that works. Heck I might find one that passes 10 discharges today only to fail when I test it with another product 6 months from now (It's happened to me.) All I know is that the CE mark loses its credibility in my eyes every time I test an item like this. Chris Maxwell | Design Engineer - Optical Division email chris.maxw...@nettest.com | dir +1 315 266 5128 | fax +1 315 797 8024 NetTest | 6 Rhoads Drive, Utica, NY 13502 | USA web www.nettest.com | tel +1 315 797 4449 | ------------------------------------------- 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"
