I wholeheartedly agree with Doug on this point. In fact, just to extend his concept further, I like to always test to failure, even beyond the regulatory limit. That way, you can determine the margin. If a product passes at 4kV, but fails at 4.1kV, I'd really like to know that! :-)
Ken Wyatt Technical Services, LLC 56 Aspen Dr. Woodland Park, CO 80863 Email: [email protected] Web: www.emc-seminars.com http://www.linkedin.com/in/kennethwyatt (719) 310-5418 On Jan 6, 2010, at 11:15 AM, Doug Smith wrote: > Just a thought on ESD testing. The actual failure level should > always be determined, not just that the test was not passed. For > instance, suppose you are trying for 4 kV contact mode but fail and > the failure happens at 1.5 kV. You try something, but unit still > fails. However, the failure level increased to 3 kV. This is very > important. Either more of the same technique should be tried or you > have peeled one layer of the ESD onion and now another mechanism > controls the response. I recently had a product that had three > distinct mechanisms and all had to be fixed simultaneously for the > product to work. A solution would never happen if one tried > experiments one at a time and just looking at the pass-fail state on > a product like this. - This message is from the IEEE Product Safety Engineering Society emc-pstc discussion list. To post a message to the list, send your e-mail to <[email protected]> All emc-pstc postings are archived and searchable on the web at: http://www.ieeecommunities.org/emc-pstc Graphics (in well-used formats), large files, etc. can be posted to that URL. Website: http://www.ieee-pses.org/ Instructions: http://listserv.ieee.org/request/user-guide.html List rules: http://www.ieee-pses.org/listrules.html For help, send mail to the list administrators: Scott Douglas <[email protected]> Mike Cantwell <[email protected]> For policy questions, send mail to: Jim Bacher: <[email protected]> David Heald: <[email protected]>
