Hi Sandy, I haven't heard of an increase in the requirements of EN 61000-4-2. In any event, if there was an increase, it would be interesting to note; but it shouldn't affect your compliance testing for Europe.
Before I go any further, I want to say that there is an exception to every rule, but generally... When evaluating a product for compliance, you first go to the product family or generic standard that covers your product; then you select the proper classification of your product within this standard (i.e heavy industrial, light industrial, commercial, medical ...) Then, you find out what level of ESD you must test to. At that point, you go to EN 61000-4-2 as a reference regarding how to set up and run the test. You don't need to follow the test levels recommended in EN 61000-4-2. Do I believe that the test levels currently listed in EN 61000-4-2 are relevant? Yes I do. I believe that the standard strikes a good balance between real world ESD levels and increased product cost to design for them. Yes, sometimes you will encounter a real world ESD of 30kV by skating in your rayon socks across a wool carpet on a February day in North Dakota, but it wouldn't be cost effective to design non-life/safety critical equipment to be immune to a 30KV discharge. We have been testing to 8KV air/ 4KV contact for about 5 years now (some of our telecom stuff gets tested to 6KV contact). The design changes have been only slightly painful; and we have not had a single customer compliant related to ESD. The only problem here is that our "sample" size is in the thousands, since we sell a few thousand of our main products each year. It would be interesting to get an opinion from someone who works for a cell phone or computer company (they sell millions of products) to see if they believe the ESD levels are relevant. Regards, Chris Maxwell Design Engineer - NetTest Optical Division email [email protected] phone +1 315 266 5128 fax +1 315 797 8024 NetTest 6 Rhoads Drive, Utica, NY 13502 USA web www.nettest.com > -----Original Message----- > From: Sandy Mazzola [SMTP:[email protected]] > Sent: Tuesday, July 31, 2001 2:21 PM > To: [email protected]; [email protected] > Subject: EN 61000-4-2 ESD Requirements > > Members, > > Is there anyone who can let me know the status of any > forthcoming increase in the EN 61000-4-2 ESD requirements of +/- 8 Kv > air and +/- 4 Kv contact. > Also any editorial comment on whether the current requirements are > realistic would also be appreciated. > > Thanks > Have a great day > > > > > Santo Mazzola > Regulatory Engineer > Symbol Technologies Inc > 1 Symbol Plaza > Holtsville, N. Y. 11742-1300 > Phone: (631) 738-5373 > Fax: (631) 738-3318 > E-mail: [email protected] > > << File: Sandy Mazzola.vcf >> ------------------------------------------- This message is from the IEEE EMC Society Product Safety Technical Committee emc-pstc discussion list. Visit our web site at: http://www.ewh.ieee.org/soc/emcs/pstc/ To cancel your subscription, send mail to: [email protected] with the single line: unsubscribe emc-pstc For help, send mail to the list administrators: Michael Garretson: [email protected] Dave Heald [email protected] For policy questions, send mail to: Richard Nute: [email protected] Jim Bacher: [email protected] All emc-pstc postings are archived and searchable on the web at: http://www.rcic.com/ click on "Virtual Conference Hall,"
