The UK's premier EMC consultancy
Elmac Services offer design consultancy and training on EMC aspects at all stages of electronic and electrical product development. This includes individual consultancy and training seminars to your own requirements. We have particular expertise in the European EMC Directive and the application of European EMC standards and test methods.Many companies do not have the resources to be expert in EMC and need the services of an EMC consultant. We can help you with
- assessing your designs at an early stage for conformance to EMC principles, and proposing an EMC test plan
- training your staff on how to incorporate EMC principles into their designs, and on the management implications of the EMC Directive and other EMC-related legislation
- advice and training on setting up and using your own test facility, whether for accredited testing or otherwise; and consultancy on achieving accreditation for your lab
- proposing design changes for products which have failed EMC tests or are showing EMC-related reliability problems
- one-to-one advice on meeting the EMC Directive (and other EMC requirements) and applying its standards
- investigating EMC problems in the field and advising on mitigation or remedial measures
Elmac Services have extensive experience in product design to both immunity and emission standards. We number a wide variety of electrical and electronics companies among our clients, from the smallest to the largest. If you have EMC problems, we'll help you solve them.
Below you will find current news and views. Follow the links on the left for the rest of the site.
Training
EMCUK
2009 at Newbury this year will feature two days of training seminars
presented by Elmac's Tim Williams and Cherry Clough's Keith Armstrong,
under the EMC Academy umbrella. Last year's sessions in October
attracted over 150 delegates. The first day will, as before, be an
overview of EMC techniques for electronic design, including:
- mechanical design - shielding and grounding
- PCB design - ground planes, layout
- interface design - cables, connectors and filters
- circuit design - choice of components
The second day will include a morning session on in-house testing, and an afternoon session on relating the common RF and transient immunity requirements to circuit, layout and mechanical design choices. Details of the programme and booking can be found at the EMCUK web page.
Meanwhile, if you want your own EMC seminar, get in touch for an in-house training course - our training page lists a whole menu of topics that can be covered, all you need to do is choose.
Power Line Telecommunication
The EMC issues raised by broadband over the mains supply continue to rumble. The standards community is trying without much success to create an amendment to CISPR 22 to cover measurements on PLT modems, and a draft networks standard prEN 50529-3 has been circulated by the CENELEC/ETSI Joint Working Group. Meanwhile BT Vision's PLT component has succeeded in actually provoking a protest group and a petition on the No.10 website with 3,500 signatories - if only all EMC problems could generate such interest! An updated article was published in the EMC Journal in January 2009 and has been added to this site, see the papers page for downloads. Also on the same page you will find some sample audio files of the interference generated by the Comtrend adaptors supplied with BT Vision. NB another article appeared in the May edition of the EMC journal, available from the EMC Journal website, detailing the emissions level from these units and considering some implications.
OJ lists
Another list for the EMC Directive was published on 5th June, it doesn't change the EN 55022 references.
Another recent change is to the Automotive EMC Directive. There was a four-year transitional period during which a supplier of aftermarket equipment had to submit all relevant information and/or a sample to a Technical Service, to determine whether or not the product was immunity-related. That period is now over and the Commission have published an Amending Directive (2009/19/EC) which removes this requirement.
Emissions measurements using time domain techniques
The workshop on 26th June 2008 on the topic of "Fast Fourier Transform (FFT) method: a sea change in emissions measurements" was very successful. The FFT method is already implemented in instruments from Rohde & Schwarz and Agilent, and it promises to revolutionise some aspects of the cumbersome radiated and conducted emissions tests. Papers from the workshop are available on the EMCTLA website. Tim Williams' keynote paper can be found here.
Fourth edition of EMC for Product Designers
The seminal book EMC for Product Designers has been published in its fourth edition.
Changes include:
- complete revision of the chapter on the EMC Directive, to take account of edition 2, 2004/108/EC
- a new chapter on the R&TTE Directive, contrasting its provisions with those of the EMCD
- revision of the chapter on standards to keep it up to date
- a new chapter on other EMC sectors - automotive, aerospace and military, and rail
- expansion of the section on testing, to keep up to date with the ever-extending test regime and to introduce new material on test planning
- revision of the section on design, to introduce a few new interesting topics and techniques
- new chapters on systems EMC, as seen from the perspective of product designers, and on EMC management
- a new appendix of case studies
Got here by mistake?
Not interested in EMC? Looking for a different Elmac? Try this one for flame arrestors; or this one for graffiti art; or this one for Italian gaming machines.
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