Laboratory for conducted emission & immunity
Immunity for EFT, Surge, ESD, DIPS & SAG testing, Voltage Fluctuations.
When testing all different kinds of equipment for susceptibility for EFT, Surge, ESD, etc. many different test-setups are required. For this purpose BICON Laboratories designed a conducted lab in which these different setups are easely constructed.
Some basic setups are stationary and can be quickly used for the required tests. This lab consists of a reference plane wich is constructed out of one piece of sheetmetal. A continuous groundplane is therefore assured. At BICON Laboratories tests of up to industrial environment levels can be performed. Also all kinds of different filtering devices can be directly installed.
For this purpose BICON has a fast variety of different brands of sample-filter-systems.
RF conducted immunity (CDN/Clamp)
At frequencies below 100MHz, generating EM-disturbance fields is very difficult because of massive losses due to impedance mismatches caused by the long wavelength at this frequency range (>30 meters). The common-mode currents produced in cable-systems by these EM-fields can be generated directly by using coupling-decoupling devices (CDN). At these lower frequencies the enclosure of an apparatus is relatively small compared to these long wavelengths.
Hence the enclosure is a bad recipient. The cable-system of an apparatus makes the equipment under test larger. All kinds of different cabling and connectors require all kinds of different CDN's. For this purpose some standard CDN (mains, coax, UTP, etc.) are available. BICON Laboratories has constructed several 'specials' to accomodate some special cabling-systems. Also injections-clamps can be used to inject RF disturbance into all kinds of cabling (regardless of type and connector).
Conducted emission (Line disturbances)
Equipment plugged into a mains-socket can inject disturbances into the line & neutral. This can be accomplished by disturbance voltages on the lines and neutral (LISN-measurement) of the public mains-network. These voltages (dBmV) are measured at frequencies below 30MHz. The currents drawn from the mains-network are all kinds of harmonics of the fundemental 50/60Hz current. In the CE-standard EN61000-3-2 limits are dictated depending upon the type of equipment. Because sudden differences in loading of the apparatus, voltage fluctuations can be generated on the mains-systems, causing lighting to flicker. Which can cause migraine and stroboscopic effects with rotating equipement. Due to imperfections in the mains-systems (even at EMC-testfacilities) an own AC-source in required. BICON's Conducted Lab is equiped with an AC-mains generator who can generater any AC voltage (perfect Sine) up to 400V with a fundamental frequency ranging from 40Hz up to 2500 Hz.
