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EMC radiated emissions problems from Riverdi LCD panel

Lawrence has been working on an Industrial (emissions Class A) pump product and has fixed an interesting EMC radiated emissions problem associated with the display panel.

Narrowband emissions caused by harmonics of a digital clock are nothing new when it comes to LCD panels and the signals that drive them. Inadequate filtering of these digital interfaces means that there is plenty of high frequency energy available to excite any parasitic antenna structure that we have created with these interconnected elements.

Normally the source of the emissions are the digital video signals from the CPU to the display. In this case, near field probing showed that the source of the noise was strongest around the display controller itself.

The first radiated emissions scan showed that there were emissions of a 60MHz clock signal present at around 300MHz and 660MHz (green = chamber background, red = measurement)

Here’s the display in question, a Riverdi RVT43 series touch screen for the Human Machine Interface (HMI) of the pump.

Lawrence took a closer look at the PCB with a contact probe and a spectrum analyser to find there was a Winbond QSPI flash running at around 60MHz.

Measuring each of the pins of the display cable (on the quad SMT resistor packs) showed significant levels of 60MHz noise on each trace, with the bottom most ones being the worst.

Looking at the circuit board we can clearly see where the problem lies:

We have a 60MHz clock trace (in red) running immediately adjacent to one of the signal traces leaving the PCB on an unshielded ribbon cable.

This is poor design practice on the part of the display manufacturer.

There is enough coupling between these traces (inductive and capacitive) for noise on the clock trace (source) to appear on the cable signal trace (victim). If we consider the fields around the traces in cross section through the PCB…

There is also the possibility of coupling inside the IC given that the output pins are immediately adjacent.

We can address the problem a number of ways

  1. Remove the noise at source by changing the PCB = not possible, this is a third party component. Changing the value of the series resistor packs could have worked in this case.
  2. Detune the antenna structure by changing the relationship of the two PCBs relative to each other = difficult to achieve, not guaranteed to work
  3. Adding common mode suppression on the cable to reduce the energy of the signal driving the parasitic antenna

Point #3 above was the only practical course of action.

A small ferrite core was placed over the cable and the results speak for themselves (green = before, red = after)

There is no compliance / EMC information / CE marking present on the display. But surely, as a piece of equipment or sub-assembly capable of causing radio interference, this falls under the scope of the EMC Directive and should be CE marked and assessed for EMC?

Yes, it should.

In this case, the host equipment manufacturer is having to deal with the poor hardware implementation by the display manufacturer.

Good work by Lawrence for getting to the bottom of this EMC problem.

MPS Presentation on DC/DC Converter Myths

I wanted to share this excellent and useful presentation by Francesc Estragués Matamala from Monolithic Power Systems.

This addresses many myths about DC/DC converter layout and I love tackling EMC myths!

I’ve been wanting to do a study like this for a while now so thanks to MPS for doing this.

Make the time to watch this.

 

 

Happy birthday to us

Unit 3 Compliance is 5 Years Old!

Happy birthday to us

Five years ago I checked in my badge at SmarDTV, turning up the next day to start disassembling the EMC test laboratory I’d worked so closely with for the previous 9 years and purchased with my redundancy pay out.

I had no customers and no concrete plan, but a lot of friends and ex-colleagues who helped me get set up and gave me my first jobs. Thank you all.

Now the “me” is a “we” with Caroline, Lawrence, and Louise having joined Unit 3 Compliance. I’m very proud to work with such a great bunch of people and to do work that matters for customers who care about their products.

Looking ahead to the next 5 years, our plans are to become the best non-accredited EMC and safety testing consultancy and laboratory in the UK (and to have fun whilst doing so).

Hopefully we can keep growing steadily, improve our test facilities, invest in some new equipment, expand our range of services, and bring in some new members to the team. We’ve got so many ideas!

Thanks for being along for the ride, we really appreciate the relationships we have with our customers, peers, and suppliers.

 

Cheers!
James

 

One Ferrite Is Not Enough

This would be a great Bond film title…

“So Blofeld, do you expect me to talk?”

“No Mr. Bond, I expect you to solve this radiated emissions problem!”

* laser noises intensify *

 

I was doing some radiated emissions problem solving on a smart LCD module and found an issue that is not new but I haven’t encountered for a while.

In this case, the solution required two ferrites. One on the I/O cable to the module and one on the flexible cable between controller and LCD screen.

Adding only a single ferrite in some cases INCREASED the emissions rather than reducing them, presumably an effect where the addition of the ferrite changes the resonant frequency of either one leg or the entire antenna to the troublesome frequency at 192MHz.

This reinforces the approach of:

  1. Always add new fixes to existing fixes already implemented. Whilst it might be the fifth change that worked, it might not have worked without the previous four.
  2. Once the last fix is in place and validated as working only then can you try and figure out what combination is actually required to solve the problem

The last step can get very busy, particularly if there are a large number of modifications applied. It might only be worthwhile if some are particularly expensive or difficult for the customer to implement in production. Different fixes for different budgets!

 

Graphical Guide to EMC: Near Field Probing (free eBook)

 

You can download our free eBook on Near Field Probing here

I have a love / hate relationship with textbooks.

They are thick, have lots of words, make me feel clever, and stop my bookshelf from floating away. They often have the one thing that you are looking for.

On the other hand, they have far too many (big!) words, too many equations with no context or explanation. I find it very difficult to sit, read and quickly gain an intuitive understanding.

 

I prefer to communicate with pictures. This is why my presentations are image heavy and text light. I’ve sat through (and slept through) far too many “PowerPoint Karaoke” sessions where the presenter reads the words on the slide.

Also I love the format of cartoons and graphic novels, but you rarely see them outside of the fiction sphere. I’ve recently been thinking about what a combination of a graphic novel and a text book would look like.

 

With the recent acquisition of an e-ink tablet with drawing stylus to replace my 74 + 5/8 different notebooks and notepads I started sketching out some ideas for a guide to using near field probes. A subject that I’m often asked about and is complementary to our free Pocket Probe Set that we give away at shows and to customers.

One thing turned into another and once I started drawing I couldn’t stop.

 

You can download our free eBook on Near Field Probing here

 

 

 

I’ve released this under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0) license. This means you can share or adapt this work but you must provide a credit / link back to the original source (here). Any adapted work must be shared with the same licence terms.

 

I’d be interested to hear your feedback on the format and content of this mini eBook – please get in touch and let me know!

Thanks and happy probing!

James

 

 

self interference demo USB3 and 2.4GHz

2.4GHz Intra-System (or Self/Platform) Interference Demonstration

In this blog we are going to take a short look at noise and interference in the 2.4GHz band. Our example victim is a Zigbee controller and the sources are nearby USB3.0 devices and Wi-Fi sources.

 

Background

One of our customers makes these rather useful USB Zigbee Coordinator sticks, frequently used for controlling smart home or IoT devices like light bulbs.

These devices operate at 2.4GHz, a very crowded frequency band with Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and Zigbee all fighting for a narrow, congested slice of spectrum.

One of the common issues faced by users of this band is that of intra-system interference, sometimes referred to as “self” or “platform” interference. This is where components in the same system interfere with each other, primarily due to their proximity.

[Note: The counterpart to intra-system (within the system) in this context would be inter-system interference (between separate systems), which is what the conventional EMC test regime of radiated and conducted emissions and immunity seek to characterise.]

This common problem is something that our customer knows all too well from helping their clients integrate these Zigbee products into the end application.

So, during a recent visit to our lab for some testing on a related product, we spent some time investigating this noise on a typical setup.

 

Demonstration Setup

The setup in the below image is common to many users with a Raspberry Pi Model B and lots of stuff plugged in to the USB ports. In this case, a Zigbee adaptor (black case) and an USB3.0 SSD in close proximity.

These parts, including the spectrum analyser, is part of the customers in-house electronics development laboratory.

 

self interference demo USB3 and 2.4GHz

 

The effects of USB3.0 on the 2.4GHz spectrum are well known. A good example is this 2012 paper from Intel which

For this demo, we used a near field capacitive probe and a 2.4GHz antenna to measure noise in the 2.4GHz to 2.5GHz band local to the Raspberry Pi.

This demonstrated the degradation of the noise floor with various levels of system activity including

  • Measurement of system noise floor
  • Presence of a USB3.0 SSD running a large file transfer using the dd Linux command
  • Activation of the Raspberry Pi internal Wi-Fi

The below image shows three traces under these different conditions.

 

spectrum of 2.4GHz band showing ambient noise, SSD noise and Wi-Fi emission

 

Experiment Conclusions

The conclusions we can draw about the in-band noise are:

  • Noise from the SSD raises the noise floor by approximately 10-20dB (a factor of x10 to x100)
  • The Wi-Fi transmission from the Pi is 40dB above the local noise floor. This will mask any received Zigbee signals from a remote transmitter.

 

In-Band vs Out-of-Band Sensitivity

Well designed radio systems are generally very robust to out-of-band interference i.e. anything outside of the narrow radio band that it is tuned to. For instance, a Zigbee radio system set to channel 20 (2.450GHz) will reject anything below 2.445GHz and above 2.455GHz.

 

Intra System Interference Diagnosis

Advice on diagnosing these issues is mostly outside the scope of this short blog. Differences in systems, components and ambient noise levels makes it impractical to offer guidance for all situations. However, some generic problem solving pointers are presented below.

A systematic approach to isolating the problem is required.

One of the primary rules of problem solving is to change only one thing at once and observe the effects.

In EMC terms, it is possible to change several things at once without realising it. Cable position, the specific port that a device is plugged into, location of nearby equipment and cables, even how firmly a connector is tightened will all make small differences that stack up. (Don’t use anything other than a torque spanner on those SMA connectors though!)

Another key rule is if you think something has made a difference, reverse the change and see if the problem re-occurs. Unless you can achieve consistency then you might be changing something else unintentionally, or the problem is caused by something outside of what you are changing.

Correlating the problem against time can help. Does it happen when something else happens (other devices on, or off, or switching, certain configurations, times of day, etc.) This can give clues.

Lastly, we should be looking for a significant step change in improvement to identify the issue. Phrases like “I think it made a bit of a difference but I’m not sure” indicates that we are dancing around the issue and not getting to the heart of it.

Ultimately, for a detailed understanding, the spectrum analyser is a key tool in gaining a proper grasp of this issue.

 

Solutions

The solutions to the problem are simple yet sometimes difficult – a technical balance needs to be struck.

Use of Ethernet rather than Wi-Fi on the Raspberry Pi.

It is not practicable to synchronise transmission from the Raspberry Pi Wi-Fi with that of the Zigbee stick. The simplest way of ensuring the Wi-Fi does not interrupt the Zigbee transmissions is to disable the Wi-Fi and provide network connectivity via Ethernet instead.

Depending on the installation this might not always be practicable but it certainly is more reliable.

 

Separation of components

Moving the antenna away from the noise source is usually the best way to achieve increased performance.

In this instance, placing the module at the end of a USB cable and away from other electronic items is a good start.

Another option that is not as ideal: a good quality SMA extension cable could be used to extend the antenna away from the problem area. This introduces loss into the RF channel, reducing signal quality.  Measurements made in our lab on a cheap extension cable from RS show a power reduction of 6.5dB at 2.4GHz for a 5m cable. This equates to a ratio of around 0.25 meaning we are broadcasting and receiving a quarter of the power we were before.

Also, it is still possible for the noise to couple onto the nearby module even without the antenna attached meaning the problem does not get entirely resolved.

 

Better quality components

Sourcing a bunch of cheap-as-possible parts from Amazon or eBay is likely to bring problems.

Using devices from big name manufacturers and buying from reputable sources helps. But, even reputable components are designed to a price point and can still cause problems if the other points in this blog are not taken into account.

USB cables can be a big source of the problem. Unshielded back shells (the part between cable screen and connector body) compromise the shielding to the point where their performance at high frequencies is equivalent to an unshielded cable.

The only way to tell if a cable is good quality is to perform an autopsy on the ends and check on the cable shielding

Remember that Pawson’s Law of Cable Quality states that the EMC performance is inversely proportional to the physical appearance. Braided covers, shiny plating, metal connector bodies, transparent mouldings etc are all indications of money spent on the OUTSIDE of the cable. EMC quality comes from the INSIDE and is not visible.

shiny usb cable vs boring usb cable

 

 

Hope this was useful! See you soon.

James

 

 

 

A Bag of Water.

This is a very useful analogy to use when considering an EMC emissions problem, particularly true for radiated emissions in the (often problematic) 30MHz to 1GHz band.

 

Lets get squeezing.

Many of you will have experienced this before. Making a change to an emitting structure inside the equipment by changing the electrical connection between two points results in some emissions going down and some going up.

radiated emissions plot

Then you make another change and this has the opposite effect.

This is like squeezing our bag of water. We can move the water around in the bag much like we can emissions around in the spectrum. The harder we press down in one area, the more it pops up in another.

Emission goes up.

Emission goes down.

 

Reducing the volume

But unless we reduce the amount of water in the bag we will nearly always have a problem. The water is incompressible and it just finds new places to appear.

To achieve this in an EMC context we need to reduce the overall energy in the system.

This could be achieved either by keeping the energy controlled on a PCB away from the radiating structure or by adding lossy components (filters, ferrites, etc) to reduce the amount of energy coupling into the radiating structure.

Changing grounding and bonding within a system without reducing the energy is going to be an exercise in frustration and probably wasted time. Better to address the problem at source where possible.

 

Caveats inbound

There will always be a requirement for us to have to try and achieve the goal of “shaping” our bag of water to fit the radiated emissions limits.

A good example is a manufacturer that has already built a production run of units and needs a quick fix to get them onto the market.

Whilst this is often achievable, there are often significant rework / modification costs involved.

There is also the question of repeatability and consistency. If small changes in bonding of parts can make a large difference to emissions, how can you guarantee that each unit will be compliant? Testing multiple samples can help. As can having good production inspection points during the manufacturing process.

But common mode noise is a slippery customer and these kind of fixes should only ever be considered as temporary pending design changes to address the root cause of the issue.

 

A small plug.

Help is available.

We are really good at this kind of work

We’ve been through the cycle many many times with many many different products.

Using Unit 3 Compliance to help with your emissions problems gets you access to our years of accumulated experience.

Our on site test lab allows us to have a rapid cycle time between analysis of a problem on the bench, developing a fix, and testing in the chamber.

 

Hope this was interesting!

James

LVD Voltage Limits are RMS + Thoughts on Marginal Voltages

The LVD a.c. voltage limits are defined in terms of rms. From 2014/35/EU

This Directive shall apply to electrical equipment designed for use with a voltage rating of between 50 and 1 000 V for alternating current and between 75 and 1 500 V for direct current

So that’s 50Vrms and 1000Vrms.

 

Example

A customer was asking about a low current (sub 1mA) 40Vac rms source and if the LVD applied.

This voltage is less than the 50Vrms threshold mentioned above so would be technically exempt from the LVD. Unless of course the equipment contained a radio module in which case the RED makes the LVD applies with no lower voltage limit.

I think that there is still a risk that needs to be assessed here.

Just because you are exempt from the directive doesn’t mean you are exempt from making your product as safe as possible.

 

Looking at the main table from 62368-1 for categorising shock risk, 40Vrms/50Hz means it is an ES2 hazard. The voltage source would have to be under this limit for normal operation, abnormal operation (e.g. blocked vent, stalled motor, controls set incorrectly) and single fault (open/short circuit) conditions.

 

This means, even though the LVD is not strictly not applicable, it would be wise to put in a Basic Safeguard between the user and the exposed voltage.

Additional: The provisions of the General Product Safety Directive (2001/95/EC) would apply to any product falling outside of any specific safety standard. The Harmonised Standards for this Directive include EN 60065 and EN 60950-1. Since both of these have been superseded by EN 62368-1 it would be reasonable to use this standard instead.
Thanks to Charlie Blackham from Sulis Consultants for the tip.

This safeguard could be an enclosure, insulation, an interlock or barrier.

Instructions or PPE aren’t sufficient as they are considered supplementary safeguards.

 

But what about the current limits?

That’s just considering the voltage source purely from a voltage perspective. If it can’t drive enough current into a 2000 ohm load for more than 2 seconds to form a hazard then that might change the classification.

This current is measured using one of the appropriate networks from EN 60990 such as the one below

 

 

But I know what I’m doing…

The requirement for safeguards depends on if you classify the user as a normal person or an instructed person

Skilled person > instructed person > normal person

3.3.8.1 instructed person
person instructed or supervised by a skilled person as to energy sources and who can
responsibly use
equipment safeguards and precautionary safeguards with respect to those
energy sources

3.3.8.2
ordinary person
person who is neither a skilled person nor an instructed person

3.3.8.3
skilled person
person with relevant education or experience to enable him or her to identify hazards and to
take appropriate actions to reduce the risks of injury to themselves and others

The level of safeguard required between the user and the ES2 hazard is defined in EN 62368-1

For a normal person we must use a basic safeguard

But for an instructed person we may use a precautionary safeguard

A Precautionary safegard (defined in 0.5.5.3) could take the form of instructions or training, but the addition of warning stickers, PPE could also be considered part of this.

 

Summary

This is why I like EN 62368-1 over some of the older safety standards (I’m looking at you, 60950)

Rather than a prescriptive “thou shalt use 2.5mm clearance or be smote verily” it helps and guides you through all the steps into understanding why or how a requirement is derived.

Also the companion EN 62368-2 explanatory document contains even more background and context. I wouldn’t recommend applying -1 without having -2 to hand.

Stay SAFE kids.

 

a roll of Wurth Elektronik copper tape - the scoundrels last resort?

So You Want To Be An EMC Engineer?

 

“Abandon hope all ye who enter here”

– Sign above the door on any EMC lab.

 

I’ve been asked a couple of times for career advice in relation to EMC. How do I get into EMC in the first place? How do I progress, perhaps moving from testing to design? Where should I take my career?

I’m generally sceptical about people who offer career advice. Much advice tends to be parochial “do this and you will succeed”. It is based entirely on what the person giving the advice thinks you should do (even if they never did it themselves.

Everyone’s upbringing and experience is so different there is no “one size fits all” approach to any career.

I can only share what I have done.

Maybe it will help.

 

Pre-Flight Check # 1: Make sure you are in the right career

Too many people are guided into careers like doctor, lawyer, engineer that might not be the best fit for them.

Make sure that engineering is right for you.

If you aren’t sure (and that’s OK) then writers like Tim Urban (career advice featuring the Yearning Octopus and your mum in disguise – long read but worthwhile) or James Altucher have lots of thought provoking advice for you.

I think being an engineer is more of a vocation than a job. If you cut most engineers through the middle it will say ENGINEER like a stick of Blackpool rock (a very British analogy). The chances are, if you are reading this, you are already in this category.

 

Pre-Flight Check # 2: Be honest about your reasons for wanting to get into EMC

Why are you wanting to get into the world of EMC?

Wanting something impressive on your CV? Think it might be a good way to get to that promotion you’ve been after? Probably will, but if these are your only reasons then you might be frustrated by the learning curve associated with the field.

One good answer is “it sounds really interesting.” If these are your thoughts then you are not wrong. I think it is one of the most fascinating fields of electronics.

In my case I was cheesed off with working in project management where I was spending less time with my soldering iron and more time in bullshit meetings. An opportunity for an EMC engineer came up in the organisation I worked for and without even thinking about it too deeply I said “I’ll do it”.

Best snap decision ever!

 

Pre-Flight Check # 3: You don’t have to be mad ^H^H^H enthusiastic to work here but it helps.

Whenever I solve an EMC problem I will generally do a little dance. It really floats my boat.

I’m lucky because I get to do what I love and people pay me. Most days I feel like I’ve won the lottery just for doing my day job.

If you don’t love the work (and it can be difficult) then its an excercise in frustration.

Try and follow what makes you want to dance in the middle of the lab. This is a fantastic lens for discovering what it is you are meant to be doing with your career.

 

General Skills: EMC is a Holistic Discipline

I spent the first 7 years of my electronics career working on…

  • power supply design
  • microcontroller coding
  • thermal CFD simulation and design
  • basic mechanical design
  • high speed digital design and test
  • system level architecture
  • cost sensitive design
  • project management

…before I became an EMC engineer. Before even realising I wanted to be an EMC engineer.

I still regularly use ALL these skills in my job as an EMC engineer.

Product design decisions made impact EMC performance.

EMC decisions impact product performance (and cost).

The two co-exist and cannot be separated.

Understanding the compromises of product design, the interaction between competing aspects (particularly cost!) is incredibly useful.

 

Go to the place least crowded / Leverage your existing skills

It might be that your team/employer/company has no EMC engineer. Take on that responsibility. This is what I ended up doing and now, 13 years later, I still love what I do.

Perhaps you have an EMC engineer colleague. Arrange to sit on their shoulder and talk to them. Ask lots of questions. Find out what area they don’t have time to work on or what problems they have. Work on that.

You are a member of an EMC team. Again, what areas do the team struggle with? What area consistently causes problems? No one is an expert on the finer points of widget calibration and the effects of temperature. Become that expert.

Find a niche (rhymes with quiche dammit) and fill it. You get to progress and inevitably find something else interesting to work on.

Follow your curiosity!

 

Get good at fixing EMC problems / make mistakes

Another fundamental truth of EMC is that There Will Be Problems.

Problems present a (usually) unique learning opportunity. Every problem I’ve solved has either taught me something or reinforced some piece of existing learning.

Spend a time in the test lab experimenting and getting an understanding of what works and what does not work.

All experiments are useful. Failed experiments or inconclusive data can help you refine your thinking.

This also leads on to mistakes. I make mistakes on a daily basis. They are usually small and easily correctable but sometimes they are bigger. Like the time I fried a piece of customers equipment by supplying 28V instead of 7.4V. Mistakes are hard teachers but you don’t forget the lesson in a hurry.

Importantly, people remember the mistake less than what you did to fix it. Own your mistakes.

 

Understand how HF current flows

In my opinion, this is the key to understanding EMC.

I recorded a presentation which might help your understanding but others have written about it before me and better (Henry Ott for instance).

Once you can visualise this you can understand the WHY behind so much of EMC.

 

Cultivate a Tolerance for Frustration

I would describe being an EMC engineer as alternately frustrating and elating.

You get better at dealing with the frustration of a problem and at solving it quicker.

Sometimes the scope of a problem is outside of your remit of available tools or skills to fix. Learn what you can and try and figure out a way forward.

 

Learn to automate

One of my favourite articles is Don’t Learn To Code, Learn To Automate.

EMC is no different to any other job, there will be repetitive tasks to perform.

Automating tests frees you up to work on other things and makes your work more consistent. Plus it gives you an opportunity to make a cup of tea whilst running a test. Maybe even a biscuit.

Automation doesn’t always go to plan or work out to be time efficient so pick your targets carefully.

 

Study Widely

Attend courses, webinars, lectures, presentations. Eventually some of it will sink in.

Sometimes you aren’t ready to grasp a piece of knowledge because you don’t have the existing framework for it to the idea to fit into.

Be wary of accepting everything at face value. Specific examples are sometimes presented without context or as globally applicable.

 

The learning never stops

I’m still trying to wrap my head around the intricacies of Power Distribution Network design, LabView coding for test automation and how antennas really work.

 

Share knowledge

Give a presentation to your colleagues about an EMC topic.

Explaining something complex to others in a simple fashion is the best marker as to how well you understand it.

I always spend lots of time on any talk I’m giving to try and make it as simple to understand as possible whilst still being useful.

 

Professional Accreditation

You may have the option of working towards accredited engineer status like the Chartered Engineer path through the IET here in the UK for example.

There are also the independent iNarte certifications which are particularly relevant for our field of work.

Some industry sectors or larger corporation might prefer you to have these qualifications. It certainly shows that you have achieved a certain level of competence and have been vetted to a certain extent by a 3rd party.

Find out what is expected or in your industry sector

I have no strong feelings either way on these professional qualifications. I investigated both whilst I was establishing Unit 3 Compliance and decided that I didn’t have the time to commit to them whilst I was setting up the business.

For me, there’s always something more impactful that I can be doing for my business than getting a piece of paper that might only make a small difference to one or two customers. I want to make a big difference for all my customers.

 

Connections and Groups

People to follow on LinkedIn

Groups on LinkedIn. Both of these are fairly active with some knowledgable members.

Other groups to join:

  • The IEEE EMC-PSTC email reflector is excellent with lots of good questions and answers on the subjects of EMC, safety and general compliance
  • IEEE EMC Society of UK and Ireland have bi yearly meetings
  • If you are in the UK, ICMA-TEL have a good email reflector with a diverse range of content including EMC, global market, safety, ROHS. Monthly meetings, mostly in the south of the UK.

 

Bonus: Copper tape is the scoundrel’s last resort

Useful as a diagnostic tool or emergency patch but not as a long term solution 😉

 

Fin.

Thanks for reading this far. If you have any ideas for what else could be included then drop me a mail.

That’s it from me. All the best on your journey.

.James

 

 

 

radiated emissions plot

RS-232 to USB Converters – EMC Problems Part Two

A while ago, I wrote about EMC immunity problems with USB to serial converters and how it was easy to fix with a small 100pF capacitor to ground on the TXD and RXD lines for a bit of filtering. Well, now I’ve found the opposite problem of EMC radiated emissions failures caused by these periodically problematic products.

In this case it appears to be harmonics of the 48MHz internal clock of a SiLabs CP2102 being conducted out of the converter on the TXD and RXD pins.

These little boards are generally used as development tools in a laboratory setting but there’s nothing to stop this IC or module being integrated into a product where these problems would manifest themselves.

The below plot shows the radiated emissionsbefore (light blue) and after (red). This module was connected to it’s host by 10cm unshielded wires, not an unreasonable application by any means.

radiated emissions plot

And what was the fix? Yep, you guessed it, some 0603 100pF capacitors on the output pins to ground. I bet that would help with immunity too! 😉