Although many experienced electrical engineers are knowledgeable
in EMC, they seldom know exactly what must be done on your new product.
Certainly, providing your engineers with EMC
training
will better prepare them to deal with EMC problems when they arise;
however,
it is unlikely that they will be able to solve all of them.
Why?
Because new products and technology, operating at higher frequencies,
generate
more emissions and new EMC problems. For example, loop radiation
is a function of the square of the frequency, therefore, if you double
the frequency you quadruple the radiation. As a result, whatever
you did for EMC on the last product is never enough for
your
next product.
In today's highly competitive global market, everyone is adopting
aggressive
scheduled and programs to minimize product cost and time to
market.
You cannot afford to develop an EMC design by trial and error or use
after-the-fact
fixes! Nor can you tolerate overly conservative designs that add
unnecessary cost to the product. But how do you determine exactly
what must be done? You call Henry Ott Consultants early
in
the product design cycle! Our experience has shown that the most
timely and cost-effective approach is a team effort that
combines
our EMC expertise with your engineer's knowledge of the product.
Together
we can usually develop a cost-effective EMC design quickly.
This is always the best approach, do it early not after-the-fact.
Most EMC solutions are inexpensive or free when done early. As the
design
cycle progresses; from concept, to design, to prototype models, to testing, to
production,
the number of EMC mitigation techniques available to the designer
decreases
steadily. Consequently, the cost of achieving EMC steadily goes
up.
This is the type of EMC consulting that we like to do! We work
with your engineers throughout the design cycle, giving EMC input
whenever
it is needed. After we get to know your product, much of the
consulting
work can be done in our office over the phone and/or by email. This is also
the
most cost effective approach for the client, and produces the best EMC
designs.
This can be done anywhere in the design cycle. We can look
at part of the design (e.g., the PCB layout, or the shielding) or the
whole
design. Not usually as good as the up-front approach but it can
still
be effective. A typical EMC design review may take from one to
two
days depending on the complexity of the product.
This situation often arises after the client has failed one or more
EMC tests, and asks us to find a fix for the problem. Scheduling
may be a problem in this situation, since we have other commitments
and
the client wants the fix by "yesterday." There are also many
additional
constraints involved in this case, since the client does not want to
change
certain things (sometimes it seems that they want a fix without any
changes).
The time required to find a solution is hard to predict, typically this
may take anywhere from a day to a week. This is the least cost
effective
of all the approaches to EMC.
We can also work with you up-front on a design in order to design
ESD
immunity into the product and avoid the problem discussed above. This
is
usually the best and most cost effective approach.
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