EMC test and measurement facility in the Cambridge area ( on site )

EMC test and measurement services

CE mark

Why EMC test ?

Your product may fail or be unreliable due to an invisible weakness in the design. When tested, it performed perfectly, in practice unusual behaviour may occur due to the effects of electrostatic discharges or unexpected effects of nearby radio or other electronic equipment.
EMC testing helps improve product reliability as well as documenting the tests to meet the CE marking requirements.

Electrostatic discharges may be caused by a person touching the equipment when unknowingly charged to thousands of volts from the interaction of their shoes and the carpet. The resulting discharge may hardly be noticed by the operator, but may cause a temporary or permanent failure of the equipment, in the worst case resulting in a dangerous incident.

Radio emissions can be caused by incorrect design of the equipment, for example a microprocessor clock signal may radiate harmonics at multiples of it's frequency and cause interference or malfunction in nearby equipment.. Emissions may be reduced by careful printed circuit board layout and attention to detail of cable routing and termination. For small volume production, it is possible to apply the "overkill" principle and fit excess filter components to reduce emissions. This is not a guaranteed route to success, and is not viable in volume production.

The reliable and cost effective method is to plan for compliance from the early design stage AND test for compliance to the appropriate standards at the prototype and pre production stage.

Occasional checks of production products are recommended to ensure continued compliance is being achieved.

CE mark

Why CE mark ?
It can provide a competitive sales advantage in certain European countries, and is a quality assurance indicator.
What is the CE mark ?
The CE mark is a declaration that the product fitted with the CE label conforms to all the appropriate product legislation in the European Union at the time of declaration.This is a very broad statement and includes the relevant Safety, Machinery Directive, EMC directive and Low Voltage Directive as appropriate.

What we measure:
We measure radiated energy in the frequency range 30MHz to 1GHz, mains conducted emissions from 9kHz to 30MHz.
Electrostatic discharge to the equipment case or any accessible point where it could be touched, from 500v up to 8KV
Mains supply dips in various durations from 0.5 to 50 mains cycles with dips of 30% to 100%.
Mains transients 500V up to 4KV, positive and negative polarity, any combination to Live, Neutral and Earth.
Induced transients in signal and power cables up to 8KV via cable clamp.
Electrostatic Discharge via Air Discharge ESD probe from 500V to 8KV, positive and negative polarity.

EMC plot What you receive:
You receive a number of signal plots with and without emissions from the equipment under test. The plots have superimposed standards levels shown, so that you have a hard copy indication of the performance of your equipment.
Copies of the plots are also provided in software; they may be viewed in a spreadsheet for further analysis.
The number of plots will be as many as required, typically 11 plots over the range 30MHz to 1GHz, with additional plots for mains conducted emissions over the frequency range 150kHz to 30MHz.
During the tests, each frequency range may be zoomed into an area of interest and re scanned to greater accuracy.
Plots may be annotated during test to indicate points of interest.
A report detailing the test methods used, comments on the measured results and possible actions required ( if any) can be supplied.

On site test
We can provide on site pre compliance testing subject to certain requirements.
Conducted mains emissions, Mains Transient effects and Electrostatic Discharge tests may be carried out on all sites subject to a suitable size work space AND a facility to connect a metal ground plane to a good earth connection.
Radiated emissions can be tested relative to background emissions, however, these are highly dependent on location and nearby sources of radio noise, such as heavy industrial equipment, welding equipment etc. which may make meaningful tests impossible.
However, a pre compliance test which identifies an obvious problem can be very cost effective.

Emission Test hardware

Conducted and radiated emissions test equipment

MACE

Electrostatic immunity, impulse and mains dip tester

For further information and availability in the Cambridge area, contact Polygon....

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