SPCs and Safety
16 Dec 2021
Author: Keith Armstrong
SPCs and Safety Metal Oxide Varistors, or MOVs (sometimes called VDRs, for Voltage Dependent Resistors, or just plain Varistors) are a low-cost component used for surge and transi...
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In our day to day business we come across many situations where we can provide solutions to EMC Problems, often just by giving some advice or guidance.
In our blog, we will pass on some of this hard won experience, with the hope that you may find the answer to an issue that you have been experiencing.
All the very best!
Keith Armstrong
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Calculating dB Uncertainty for a LISN
12 Oct 2021
Author: Keith Armstrong
Calculating LISN Uncertainty in dB for an Uncertainty Budget Question: I am preparing the uncertainty budget for a Conducted emissions measurement. LISN Uncertainty is given in o...
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Getting the Financial Resources We Need
15 Jul 2021
Author: Keith Armstrong
How to Get the Financial Resources We Need A problem faced by all engineers and engineering managers is persuading our managers that we need a new item of test equipment, or need ...
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A simple method for estimating radiated emissions
17 May 2021
Author: Keith Armstrong
A simple method for estimating radiated emissions I recently received the following question: How to calculate the radiated E field with following test conditions with an antenna...
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Skin Effect and Surface Currents
11 May 2021
Author: Keith Armstrong
Skin Effect and Surface Currents Understanding skin effect and surface currents saves us a lot of time and cost in the design of our product's shielding and filtering, especially ...
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EMC Good Practice Makes Perfect
22 Apr 2021
Author: Keith Armstrong
EMC Good Practice Makes Perfect In the European Union, the EMC Directive requires all “fixed installations” to employ “good EMC engineering practices”, as do all national ...
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Both IEC 61000-6-4 and IEC 61800-3, Category 3 relate to Industrial use with supplies not connected to the public low voltage mains. The limits for 61800-3 Cat 3 are higher than those for 61000-6-4, so which should I use for my control panel?
18 Jan 2021
Author: Keith Armstrong
Both IEC 61000-6-4 and IEC 61800-3, Category 3 relate to Industrial use with supplies not connected to the public low voltage mains. The limits for 61800-3 Cat 3 are higher than th...
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EMC Confidence Checking
06 Jan 2021
Author: Keith Armstrong
EMC Confidence Checking I was recently working with a manufacturer of stand-alone ticket machines, who had big problems with Ethernet-related emissions. Long story short – it wa...
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What to do about BREXIT and UKCA marking
15 Dec 2020
Author: Keith Armstrong
What to do about BREXIT and UKCA marking Excellent guidance is provided by: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/placing-manufactured-goods-on-the-market-in-great-britain-from-1-january-20...
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Don't Rely on the Stability of the Mains Frequency
09 Nov 2020
Author: Keith Armstrong
Don't Rely on the Stability of the AC Mains Frequency! My old colleague and good friend Tim Williams sent me the story below for inclusion in EMI Stories/Banana Skins, and I found...
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Constructing I/O panels for shielded rooms
14 Oct 2020
Author: Keith Armstrong
Question: ‘We are building our own in-house DIY EMC test chamber for testing simple relative radiated measurements. We want to be able to see if certain design choices affect th...
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'Clean Earths' Aren't Clean! Or Earth!
01 Oct 2020
Author: Keith Armstrong
'Clean Earths' Aren't Clean! Or Earth! FACTS: All conductors have self-inductance and space-charge capacitance, which causes them to have self-impedances that vary with frequency...
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Getting Started with EMC
25 Aug 2020
Author: Keith Armstrong
Whenever I need to research something, the Internet is my first port of call, and the more you search, the more information you find! However, as we all know, the actual quality o...
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There are no low frequency systems any more!
11 Aug 2020
Author: Keith Armstrong
There are no low frequency systems any more Following on from my Blog “Ground / power bounce cause noise emissions from all IC pins”…. When we measure excessive emissions f...
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Risks associated with EMC and EMI - Don't get confused!
01 May 2020
Author: Keith Armstrong
Risks associated with EMC and EMI – don’t get confused! There are many kinds of risk For example: the risk of being late for an appointment; the risk of buying a lottery tick...
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How EMC is achieved in 199 words!
15 Apr 2020
Author: Keith Armstrong
How EMC1 is achieved, in 199 words! EM propagation2 creates all the voltages and currents we measure in our circuits and cables, as well as creating all the unwanted voltage and...
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Never believe any certificates or declarations
04 Mar 2020
Author: Keith Armstrong
Never believe any certificates or declarations Commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) products, modules and components may be declared by their manufacturers as being compliant with safe...
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Functional Safety, Risk Management, EMC and EMI
01 Mar 2020
Author: Keith Armstrong
Functional Safety, Risk Management, EMC and EMI What is Functional Safety? The safety of products, systems and installations can be split into two parts: i) ‘Basic’ s...
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Ground / power bounce cause noise emissions from all IC pins
14 Feb 2020
Author: Keith Armstrong
Ground / power bounce cause noise emissions from all IC pins Ground and power bounce are often ignored as sources of CM noise emitted from all integrated circuit (IC) pins, even i...
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ESD testing needs to change to reflect real-life
21 Jan 2020
Author: Keith Armstrong
ESD testing needs to change to reflect real-life Semiconductor die shrinking means that 0.7ns risetimes are now too slow Electrostatic discharges in the real world cover a very w...
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