Dear Derek and Brian If you (or anyone else) have any examples of "things that didn't work well together" for reasons of lack of adequate EMC I'd be pleased to have some details of them. Also of things that didn't work well because of their electromagnetic environment.
E.g just recently I heard two examples where overhead travelling cranes in heavy engineering factories started moving due to interference. One was a radio controlled crane influenced by a new spindle controller drive on a CNC machine in the factory, the second was not radio controlled but although its controller used no software it was set moving by a (supposed) mains transient. I'm usually told by equipment manufacturers that their installers and users never experience any problems with interference, so (they claim) design and testing for immunity is a waste of money. But when I talk to users (especially people who construct more complex electronic systems) it seems that they always have interference problems, which usually get fixed by trial and error leading to a greater cost and lower reliability for the user than if the interference had been fixed by good design and immunity testing in the first instance. Computer networking is a field in which a lot of trial and error seems to occur to make them work adequately, and computer downtime is known to lose economies like the US several hundreds of millions, if not billions, of dollars annually (I've got the survey results somewhere....). I wonder how much of this is down to a lack of adequate EMC? I may want to make some details public, so make sure to suppress manufacturers' names unless the information is already public domain. References to publications in which any examples were reported would be welcome too. Also please let me know whether you are happy to have your name, or your company's name, associated with the examples if/when I do publish them (I'll automatically leave your name off - unless you specifically say you are happy for me to use it, in which case I'll be pleased to say who provided the information.) I am up to date with all the interference incidents reported in Compliance Engineering Magazine since 1992, including all the medical equipment stuff that can out after Silberberg's first articles on interference in healthcare premises - so please don't repeat that info. For EMC examples that I have had published so far, refer to the EMC Journal's "Banana Skins" section, that they began in their February 98 issue (www.emc-journal.co.uk). Thanks in advance for all information, references, and anecdotes! Keith Armstrong Partner, Cherry Clough Consultants Cherry Clough House Rochdale Road, Denshaw, OL3 5UE, UK phone: +44 1457 871 605 fax: +44 1457 820 145 Email: karmstr...@iee.org lfresea...@aol.com wrote: > > Brian, > > here is the US the manufacturer has is easy... But many things we buy don't > work well together! > > Derek.
