October 2011 Archives - In Compliance Magazine

Troubleshooting Radiated Emissions: Three Case Studies

Radiated emissions (RE) are often the number-one cause of compliance failures for most electronic products. This article describes simple troubleshooting steps and tools to isolate most RE issues.

The “Core” of Designing for NEBS Compliance

Most of you know NEBS has something to do with telecommunications. It’s true; NEBS has a lot to do with telecommunications. NEBS is the premiere set of documents used to ensure telecommunications equipment perform at their highest level possible.

Guide to Testing Conducted Emissions (Based on the Methods in EN 55022 and EN 55011) – Part 2

Conducted emissions testing may be carried out on an Open Area Test Site (OATS) intended for testing radiated emissions, but it is not necessary to use an OATS and conducted emissions can be tested relatively easily, with high accuracy, in the comfort of your own building.

The iNARTE Informer – October 2011

Thoughts on the IEEE EMCS 2011 The 2011 Long Beach Symposium was one of the better EMCS events in recent years. The organization was done well, the venue was attractive and all the attendees we spoke with we... Read More...

Static Hocus Pocus

Associate Professor Neils Jonassen authored a bi-monthly static column that appeared in Compliance Engineering Magazine. The series explored charging, ionization, explosions, and other ESD related topics. The E... Read More...

Smoking or Non-smoking?

In the Summer of 2000 I booked some burn time at a small environmental lab in south Dallas. The facility was not exactly state-of-the-art, but the price was right: $300 a burn. It sure beat paying about $4,000 a burn at an NRTL at the time. For 300 bucks, you got the chamber, a methane line burner connected by a hose to a big tank of methane gas, and a technician who would manually operate the whole thing from an adjoining isolated room. A fire extinguisher was always ready “just in case”.

EMC and the Smart Grid

The smart grid is a rapidly emerging topic in the field of electrical and power engineering that affects everyone worldwide. The IEEE is actively engaged in the Smart Grid Form (http://smartgrid.ieee.org). T... Read More...

Failure Analysis: A Road Map

Although the foundation of a failure analysis is rooted in science, there is also an art to completing one, successfully. The path from problem discovery to problem solution has many bumps and twists along the way. This article will hopefully help guide you on that journey.