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Don MacArthur

Don MacArthur is a Guest Contributor to In Compliance Magazine. He has over 30 years of experience in product development, EMC, testing, and product safety compliance. He has developed products for military, commercial, and industrial applications.

From This Author

Practical Engineering: Material Group Selection and How it Affects Spacings

Often overlooked during the development of appropriate spacings (creepage distances) for safety-certified products is the failure to account accurately for the material group of the components involved. This oversight can have significant implications. Let us briefly explore this issue to raise awareness among readers.

Product Insights: Differential Probes

A differential probe is an active device used to take measurements of certain circuit elements of electronic devices. They are most often used in conjunction with an oscilloscope. Key features and applications of differential probes are summarized in this article.

Practical Engineering: Capacitor Safety Considerations

You know that feeling when a capacitor’s datasheet claims one thing, but NRTL’s online certification directory tells a different story? This blog is all about that - specifically a capacitor rated X1 and Y1, but the certification directory only showed X1. Moral of the story? Double check those certs early in the game to avoid delays.

Product Insights: The 5-Hour Rule for Career Advancement and Overall Life Satisfaction

The 5-Hour Rule, a simple concept many successful people use, is a solution to making the time for honing and developing new skills.

Practical Engineering: Creepage Distance of an Optocoupler

This month's blog is pulled from the product safety playbook. It highlights a potential issue to avoid when considering an optocoupler's creepage distance when placed onto a printed circuit board (PCB).
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Product Insights: The Most Important Skill to Develop as a Compliance Professional

There is one important skill to develop, over and above all others, that makes life much easier, sets you on a path toward success, and increases your status as a true compliance professional.

Practical Engineering: Standards for Electricity Meters and Other Similar Devices

Electricity meters and other similar devices have their own set of unique standards and requirements.

Product Insights: Antenna Factor

There are many properties of antennas used to describe their performance. The antenna factor is most useful to those performing electric field radiated emissions measurements.

Practical Engineering: Pre-compliance for Product Safety

If pre-compliance activities are good for discovering EMC design weaknesses early in product development, why not apply the same thought process to product safety?

Product Insights: Charged Device Model ESD Testing

This blog explains CDM ESD testing using the field-induced (FI) method, which is important for semiconductor manufacturers. It covers building a CDM-FI tester, waveform details and verification, and qualification nuances. 
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