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Rack-Mounted Test Set Helps You Reach CE Mark Status

The manufacturer says . . .

ChipCenter's Alex Mendelsohn says . . .

AR Introduces Compact Simulator for Transient Generator Immunity Testing Including 100 kHz Ringwave for IEC and ANSI/IEEE Standards Souderton, Pennsylvania--Amplifier Research is now offering a state-of-the-art ultra compact simulator for transient immunity testing in industrial, residential, medical, and telecom applications. The EM Test UCS500M/6B includes burst, surge, power fail, plus optional built-in ESD and Ringwave test modules in one compact system. The UCS500M/6B is capable of testing to IEC 61000-4-2, 4-4, 4-5, 4-8, 4-9, 4-11, and 4-12, as well as ANSI/IEEE C62.41, European Generic Standards EN61000-6-1 and 6-2, and EN60601-1-2. The standard Windows-based software provides a complete test report that can be exported to an RTF file or Excel for editing. The user needs only to select the standard to be tested, and the test files for completing the required tests are available to the user. In addition to the standards given above, numerous product standards are also available in the software. Like all AR products, the UCS500M/6B is backed by AR's world-class "Mark of Performance," which includes a powerful support and service network and the strongest guarantee in the industry. All amplifiers, antennas, precompliance test systems, transient generators, power meters, couplers, and tripods are backed by a full 3-year warranty. The UCS500M/6B is sold, serviced, and calibrated by Amplifier Research in its Souderton, Penn., plant. The U.S. price is $20,000. For more information contact AR 160 School House Rd. Souderton, PA 18964 Phone: (215) 723-8181 Web: www.amplifiers.com For an applications engineer, call 215-933-8181.

Designing and selling products worldwide means you've got to be able to meet international standards—and make the compliance tests necessary to ensure you're meeting those standards. Amplifier Research's (AR) latest 19" rack-mounted Model UCS500M/6B is a simulator that can help meet those requirements. Although the company bills its system as compact, to me that's a bit of a stretch, as the UCS500M/6B occupies a fair bit of space in a rack, and weighs in at over 50 pounds. Having said that, it's likely that a homebrew test suite cobbled together from disparate components would be a lot larger and bulkier. Size aside, the UCS500M/6B will permit you to test using bursts, and let you make line surge and voltage dip tests, too. You can also make frequency and magnetic field tests. The system will also handle power-fail simulation and do ESD tests for both air and contact discharges—even simulating the effects of lightning strikes. Finally, the system will do Ringwave tests. It's Obsolescence-Proof It's clear that AR is in tune with the needs of the marketplace—the design of this simulator exceeds all current standards. Moreover, the system can be upgraded as needed to ensure your ability to test to future international standards. Current and pending changes will likely place more stringent requirements on the equipment used for so-called CE Mark testing. Right now, OEMs have to meet the Electromagnetic Compatibility (EMC) guidelines of EC Council Directive 89/336/EEC. To do this, you must test and certify that your product meets the directive, and then you get the right to apply a CE Mark label to your end-product as mute testimony. Future changes pretty much require that any CE Mark testing equipment be able to expand and change. You don't want the equipment to become obsolete. The UCS500M/6B can handle these needs, as it is modifiable and therefore upgradable. As it stands, the UCS500M/6B can generate test voltages from as low as 200 V to a whopping 5.5 kV (be careful), using standard test routines, including so-called Quick Start types. These include synchronous bursts, random bursts, and frequency sweeps using simulated waveshapes. Triggering can be manual, automatic, or from an external source. Burst pulses, also called electrical fast transients, or EFTs, are also testable. EFTs usually happen on AC power line mains when big switch contacts arc. The nature of the loads connected to the power lines causes short bursts of pulses across these switches. In turn, that can cause interference in electronic equipment connected to the lines. As you can guess, testing in this sort of environment requires specialized equipment. For example, recent proposals for changing the IEC 61000-4-4 spec call for increasing the frequency of applied pulses, up to about 100 kHz. Moreover, these bursts have to be applied at peak levels to as much as 4 kV on the power-supply lines of the equipment under test. Because the burst pulses can be radiated into equipment signal lines from nearby power leads, the burst pulses are also required to be capacitively coupled to the signal leads. For its part, the IEC 61000-4-5 spec additionally requires that a generator like the UCS500M/6B be capable of applying surge pulses at a rate of at least one/minute. The 4-5 test definition also requires pulses to be applied at zero degrees, 180 degrees, 270 degrees, and 360 degrees of a power-input waveform. These pulses must be applied from line to line and from the line(s) to ground. In total, 320 pulses are required. To accommodate these requirements, the UCS500M/6B uses a high-energy internal power supply and special switches to deliver all 320 pulses in a period of one hour. Efficiency is key here, because if a generator meets the bare minimum requirement of one pulse per minute, a typical test takes more than five hours. As you can see, AR's UCS500M/6B is indeed quite specialized. Communications Hooks Not mentioned in AR's press statement is the fact that the LCD-equipped Model UCS500M/6B also includes network hooks. As such, you can opt to drive this instrument locally from its front panel, or remotely, using Windows software across a network. It's also significant that the supplied Windows ware lets you generate documentation, in the form of RTF (rich-text) files, or exportable files into Excel spreadsheets. In addition to an RS-232 serial interface that can run at speeds as high as 19.2 kbits/s, the UCS500M/6B also includes an IEEE-488 interface, something not mentioned in AR's press release. Satisfaction Guaranteed As I mentioned, actual testing of a product is a requirement for the CE Mark. But immunity testing can also be a tool to achieving customer satisfaction. If a product isn't susceptible to ESD and potentially damaging transients, it's got to be more reliable. With lawyers seemingly running amok these days, ESD immunity can be significant from a safety and legal-liability standpoint, too. The AR Model UCS500M/6B can fill the bill in this regard. Its $20,000 cost could be a small price to pay in today's litigious society.

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