Ravinder, Indeed, the IBM ESD furniture-type ESD simulator should be long remembered!
The purpose of this kind of test is equipment a customer will WANT to buy. If we are wise, we go _beyond_ what the law requires, so we will gain the trust of our customers. Often, management views tests such as these as an expensive, necessary evil, but they are more vital than that. I once saw color TV's on sale for $75. When I asked why, the store manager told me the parent company -- which I will not name -- had gotten a great deal on color TV's and didn't realize until too late that the manufacturer sold them on the understanding that a third of 'em wouldn't work out of the box. "No problem! Throw away bad set. You buy cheap TV, still make money!" What it did to customer loyalty... I understand that national chain is no longer in business. Ad astra -- per Aspirin! Cortland ========================================= On 4 March, Ravinder Ajmani wrote: I fully support Lacey's views about performing some immunity testing on the products, in order to improve their reliability. Long before FCC/EU implemented EMC requirements on the electronic products, IBM had formulated emissions and immunity standards for their products. Even now some of the IBM standards are tougher than the FCC/EU standards, while a few others do not figure in EU requirements. The only purpose for these internal standards is to make sure that customer has no cause for complaints, even when the equipment is not used as per the manufacturer's recommendations. We keep on devising new tests to emulate the working of our products under severe stress conditions, some of which may be caused by the poor quality of auxiliary equipment used by our customers. Again, if these extra requirements are designed-in, the cost to the company is extremely low. All it needs is the awareness in the designers to take these requirements in to consideration at the early design stage. Bigger companies like IBM can afford to have a dedicated person overseeing these needs, but then they also have lot more products. Smaller companies can train there design engineers in EMC practices. Also, there are inexpensive tools, which although not perfect, can provide big help in making first prototype almost right. All this certainly saves you big bucks at the test labs, and putting retrofits to mitigate EMC problems, once the product has been built. As Lacey has pointed out, we are going to see more susceptibility problems in household equipment as our home PCs become faster and faster, and microprocessors are used in increasing numbers of household appliances. --------- This message is coming from the emc-pstc discussion list. To cancel your subscription, send mail to [email protected] with the single line: "unsubscribe emc-pstc" (without the quotes). For help, send mail to [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], or [email protected] (the list administrators).
