troubleshooting

A simple antenna positioned right on your bench can reveal radiated emissions in real time. Learn how to separate product harmonics from ambient RF noise, track down capacitive and inductive coupling paths, and use copper tape and foil to hunt down leaky seams and apertures.

Full-wave EMC simulation tools are powerful — but often too slow, too costly, and too complex for real-world troubleshooting. Dr. Min Zhang makes the case for free SPICE-based tools, walking through three field scenarios where quick models helped isolate failures, validate test setups, and guide next-generation designs.

Engineers can now reproduce expensive bulk current injection (BCI) test failures using a simple homemade "flying" probe with capacitive coupling. This cost-effective alternative enables pre-compliance EMC immunity testing in any lab, helping identify and fix automotive module communication issues without specialized high-power equipment.

An AM radio can be useful for finding both radiated emissions and ESD events. Understanding how radio works is essential for engineers to use this low-cost technology to troubleshoot complex EMI issues.

In this column, the author offers a brief summary of a more systematic approach for using ferrite cores on cables. This summary can serve as a “ferrite core checklist” for design and test engineers.

This article describes three troubleshooting methodologies doctors use to diagnose (troubleshoot) medical problems. These same techniques have proven useful in my own EMC consulting practice.

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.