Dave goes on a tour of EMC Technologies new $1.8M RF Anechoic Test chamber used for automatic and product testing for EMC emissions and susceptibility.
Also their other test chambers like the GTEM (Gigahertz Transverse Electromagnetic) test facility.
Thanks to Rob Weir (Yes, he's a New Zealander)
www.emctech.com.au
EMC Pre-Compliance testing: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uLIr1eFjY2s

Hi Welcome to the Eev blog an Electronics Engineering Video blog of interest to anyone involved in electronics design. I'm your host Dave Jones Hi I'm in Melbourne Australia and I'm here at EMC Technologies One of the world leaders in everything EMC I'm here with Rob thanks for joining us Rob he's from EMC technology you're an RF I'm test engineer y Yep the with compliance testing, emissions and imunity. Yep. and we've got some awesome staff behind this door and uh, in the rest of the facility we're going to check it out.

About behind this door is about 1.8 million bucks worth of Awesomeness So let's check it out. Push the button. Rob We go, let's go. let's do it.

Going to, let's go check it out. This is brilliant. Absolutely brilliant. 1.8 million bucks worth of uh RF um Anaco chamber.

It's basically the uh, biggest um Anaco chamber for RF EMC testing in the Southern Hemisphere and Rob's going to take us through it. This is brilliant. Fantastic. I Love it.

So we got some ceiling on the door here as well. We got oh that's actually that's it's notal. it's a cond right? it's a it's a conductive impregnated and I guess on the door you've got the more fingers. Yep and they made up with into the wow.

Brilliant! And it actually it's a big concrete uh Channel down there. And and and this floor lifts up. What's the purpose of the floor lifting up? just so we can drive the vehicles in, drive vehicles in and and then it allows the seal around the bottom. Of course because this is lower than the uh, floor level than the base of the door, right? so there was no way you could really seal the bottom of that.

And and yeah, cuz you, you have bad ceiling around the bottom of the door. We measured it, we got about 80 DB attenuation across the whole frequency range inside the room, which is okay, um what we were after which is a fair bit is enough to cancel pretty much everything we need need out. And who was it manufactured by? Um Franconia Franconia German Company Germany I Believe Yeah, Yep, and that's one of their other. that's one of their other facilities.

Is it yeah? I'm not sure where that photo was taken, but um, haven't actually been about that one. You mentioned something about a plane they were testing about it. Yeah, I think there was one in China They made one. There was a fully Anaco chamber which meant there's cones on the bottom as well, right? And it was big enough to fit in a jet fighter jet fighter.

so they had it hanging from the roof. And then, yeah, that's right. So another scale? Fantastic, right? But this one is is pretty darn big it is. It is massive, That's probably 20 M tall total would be my guess.

Um, and then inside the chamber would be um, you know, around about 15 M as I've mentioned. from the floor to the top of the conb roughly. or maybe even to the roof, that'd be about, right? Yeah, yeah, something like that. And the door is very cool.

It's very, uh, cold warish, kind of. uh, it's very solid, isn't it? It is very solid indeed. I Like it. No wonder.
I'm surprised this thing only cost $1.8 million actually compared to that, you know a million do for that robot arm you've got chamber, but then with a test gear that goes with it, the Mast and and the fiber optic system, the camera system, right? probably all on top of that as well. Yeah, right. So that was just the physical build of the So yeah, but that's obviously the bulk of the cost. Y And that FL floor is capable of handling many T many tens of tons.

it's about 8 or nine tons. I Think to go in there. Yep, so it's a good size vehicle. Yep, well we could actually drive a truck.

Yeah you? D pretty TR or something probably fit in there. Y fine. Brilliant. And this is, um, pretty much the coolest thing I've ever seen.

It is just wow is all you can say. and you can actually see the uh size of the depth of the uh cones here when you when you actually stand side on inside the door 2.2 M depth. and that's how they get away. without the uh, the Ferite, It's brilliant.

You can just drive trucks in straight through the roller door And this is our control room for the uh. Indoor Oats Indoor Open Area Test site. So that's A So that's essentially what it is is an indoor open area designed to duplicate an open area. Yep, Outdoor site? Yep, precisely just to avoid all the uh Ambience So this is our test receiver that we use here.

It's uh, good for up to 6 and 1/2 gcks. Yep, which covers most testing. But nowadays we've got quite a lot of work going up to 18 gigs, 12 and2 gigs, 18 gigs, and even for the FCC, we're going up to 40 gigs. That's what the chamber is capable of doing.

Yeah, well, at 40 gigs, distances isn't such a big thing. So got it. You're not going to get the Reflections in that so much. Yep.

and you've got at the levels we're measuring. it's not B deal and you've got a a pan tilt video camera here. that's was all remote control from in here. Yeah, so we can play around with it, monitor things as we as we test them.

Yep, make sure there's no fire or right or anything like that. It's yeah, just to make sure everything's working really at the stage. Yep, and this is how old is this pH How um when was it built? We commissioned it just after Christmas this year. So um, it's been going for a good about 10 months so got it? Yeah, still pretty new, still finding little bugs here and there, but um, right y we've got it working pretty efficiently now.

It's good. What sort of bugs? What sort of problems would you get with these sort of setting up these? sort of Chambers um not not many. It's small things like uh, the fiber optics, setting them up properly and right just the way we we like it. way.

we want to use more than you customize it for your particular, that's right, uses that fits our equipment and and that sort of thing. Like the very high frequency stuff, the cables are got too much attenuation. so we have to actually do testing inside the room. so you have to move the gear in there.
and so we move like that test receiver. we sit in there on a we desk. would you Shield the gear when it's in there? No. Again, it's only the really high frequencies and they're very directional as you can imagine.

so we haven't had a problem with what we've been measuring right and you've got to and very low. Tech loop antenna there antenna. it's got to be pre than that so that's for 30 Megs and under. generally right for magnetic fields.

Uh, we've got over here. We' got a sort of a standard game horn kit. Up to again, 18 gigs I think so right? So that's a little feed horn. Yeah, so they got a standard gain usually about 30 DB over a um yep.

small frequency range and that's just got an end connector on it. and yep, just all end connectors. Uh, we got another one as well. Go down to about 1 gig right with these.

NE Obviously the the bigger they are, the lower frequency. Yep. nice. And there's the there's the internal door.

It's not nearly as big as the uh external door that you can drive a truck through. That's right. It's a bit easier to open and close. Yep.

Ta Here we go. All right, shall we take a look? Let's go inside. Oh here. This is just brilliant.

This is brilliant. There's no other word for it. Really, it's pornographic. Look at this.

It really is. So tell us about this room. This is your this. This is the uh, brand new, biggest theats.

Yeah, biggest in the Asia Pacific region. Yeah, Southern hemisphere, maybe Southern Hemisphere. some big ones up in China and that obviously right? y Um, but pretty much we've got the turntable here which we can control from outside the room, right? We put our place, our product, whatever we're testing on the table. Yep, uh.

this test is a bit different. Usually it's laid flat. it's about 80 cm high table, right? This is, um, an intentional transmitter test. So we're trying to get into the uh, sort of a Fe No.

Reflections off the ground plane sort of open space. Yep, and is that a big block of foam? Yeah, that's no. it's just polyarene. Oh it's yeah, it's just poly starine, poly staring.

Block It's pretty invisible way up to the high frequencies right? and we used to use wood, but now that frequencies are getting up any moisture moisture in the wood I'd say would absorption issues even? would it be absorption or would it be ref Reflections mainly mainly Reflections okay for sure right? Y And these are incredibly deep I Cannot believe how deep these cones are. They're like 2 m deep. They're absolutely 2.2 2.2 M deep. Okay, the idea is so we don't have to have fite tiles on it.

Oh okay so this isn't a fite til room cuz it would be massively expensive and too heavy. Yeah, complete structural cuz this is like structure that's got to be 10 my absil in Heights I reckon that's 15. M Actually, from here to the top of that roof sounds about right 15 M So that's 4 M high, right? Okay, well it's probably 5 m to the top right? M Oh right. So yeah, y so the M here tell us about this.
That's all. um computer controlled again. From the outside it's all fiber optic link. We can control the up and down and also the polarity.

so most tests are done right. the antenna horizontally and vertically just to cover all the bases right? so that'll just rotate that around on on command and you can raise it up to 4 M high. Is that part of the standard? That's right? Um, because the reflections off the ground plane, we got to go all the way up right to 4 M Okay, um, set up for 3 m a 3 m distance at the moment. roughly a little bit closer.

Actually, solve the reflection issues by putting those tiles you've got over there. um in front of the would that be a common practice. That's where they do go for some tests. the tests above a gig.

They want the testing done in free space, so the best we can do is put tiles in the front so there's no Reflections Got it? But the standards call for the ground plane that's supposed to be there. They take the reflections into consider. Oh, they take it into consideration in the standard. Got it? When we calibrate the room, we put a transmitter on the turntable and have the anten back at our 10 m.

Mark right and measure the standard field off. And we measure the attenuation between the two antennas. Got it And it's got to be within a certain thetical um, yep, level across the whole frequency range. Why is that off axis that? uh Mark I presume that's another Mark to put the Uh antenna? Yeah, I'm guessing just because of you still get certain better reflection and that and probably uh, the standard calls up.

You have to have a certain distance to cones and things like that so maybe it's too close. yep to the back. But Franconia Who built it? They would have checked all this out first. probably found that this was the optimum position, right? And what's the access port down on the floor here? Um, at all.

The got a couple of points there. We've got. Um, take one up. so we've got power into there nice and got the fiber optic link to control the Mast Okay, and it's a fiber optic link because you obviously don't want any.

any. No emissions at all. Yeah, Zero emissions inside the chamber unless you absolutely have to. That's right.

unless there's an auxiliary equipment or something in here. And once again, that is all. Uh, RF Um, shielded as well around? Yeah, that's right. Yep.

Yep. So so we can put maybe put some put a test gear in there usually up there. but if we need to. Y And we've also got patch panels, we've got cables going from here back out to the control room.
Okay, right. nice. And is this all built on a wooden? Looks like it's all built on a wooden base? Yeah, it's raised up from the concrete floor by about a I Don't know. a meter? Maybe not a meter.

Is there a reason for that? Uh, purely to get cables under? Maybe. Oh yeah, for sure. Yeah, that would be the idea. I Guess right? And what are these actually? What are these ones? Cardboard? these are Cardboard? again.

other ones. Yeah right. And they've got an end cap I Don't know. Protection just for protection right? And why the different colors? All righty.

This is our main door. The red ones are the yep, the doors ones that move and the yellow is just outside of it. Yep, so there's one up there as well. We can pull those cones out.

Excellent. Got a big extractor and then yeah, another extractor for testing cars and trucks because you are going to install a a big A huge turn. Want a huge turntable with with a Dyno on it so we can test them running right at the moment? We only do emissions but we're looking at doing immunity. Whole vehicle immunity T Whole vehicle immunity.

So you drive the manufacturer drives their car here and you B it and bombard how many volts per meter. Yeah, we can go 100 volts is 100 Vol the standard one. Yeah, all right. but it varies depending on the car and and that they they want higher than that nowadays.

200 sometimes 300 volts got it meter. so there's no Ferite tiling in here at all. You just found you didn't Didn't need the cones again cuz they're so long. it's actual dimensions of the cones physical dimensions right? Define What frequency ranges they work at.

So what what range is this room capable of? I Think it's up to 18 gigs again. So so 30 Megs is a starting frequency for for the sis this type of testing. So from 30 Megs up, yeah to I think 18 is usually the standard. maybe even a little bit higher.

I'm not sure right? how is the turntable going to be installed in here? Uh, we've got a big pit underneath so we'd have to rip up the okay, okay, you'd have to take it up and and that'll be perly installed. Yeah, yeah, there's about a 6ot pit. Oh okay, down under there right, cuz you'd need a fairly beefy turntable to turn a truck around with the Dino and that on there. I Think it's all got to move and yep, and that so you don't get any cables caught up.

How would you do a doo without generating electromagnetic interference? Would you'd Probably you could do a sort of a test with it just running and right look at and you could take that spectrum and and work around it. Okay, would you do that if you had gear in here as well? Yeah, that's usually quite often in the military and auto standards. They require us to do an ambient test, right? Um, but we know there's nothing in here So right? But they want that as part of the documentation though. That's right.
Yeah, yeah, got it. Yeah. Excellent. Cool.

Um, we can I think it's rated up to about 8 tons. at the moment. it can hold 8 tons. Wow.

Nice. And what's the floor? Is it? Uh, it's just a sheet sheet. Ste Alum Is it steel? Sheet steel? Probably. Yeah.

Just she rolled rolled sheet steel I think but looks at it. Yeah, it's on a a metal frame and on I had another another level of this as well in the bottom. So there's actually two. right? Um, two layers of the metal.

Fantastic. And this is pretty much the biggest, uh room in the Southern hemisphere I'd say so easily. Oh yeah, yep, not many of them around. and it cost about $1.8 million.

I Heard. So not cheap? No no. Wow. Can't believe the depth of these.

The depth on these is just remarkable. It really is. So was it. 2.2 M 2.2 M depth.

Brilliant. Yeah, it makes our job a lot easier without Y TV signals and right radio and all that sort of carryon. Yep, we're finding out at Open Air FS site that we're just getting too hard. The digital TV stations, right? So that was a big that was a big problem.

Digital: TV Quite broad. Yep. Okay, even in the middle of nowhere, where was your open air test? Located Lburg Gorge which is near Beck as Marsh right? How far? Where's the nearest about 40 minute drive from here and where was the nearest RF source to that you know the the few cell phone towers around the place in there. There's a Township not far away.

So TV was there right? Yeah, and that's why you built this indoor indoor facility. Because it's we'd have to go into the middle of Australia to get a right. You can't avoid it nowadays. Dig a big hole or something.

y Although I heard we're probably a good chance to get the very large array uh, Radio Telescope contract Australia's bid against South South Africa or something. And yeah, yeah, cuz we offer a whole bunch of open space in the middle of Western Australia and uh, I think one in New Zealand too. I've heard they're all over the place. Yeah, they're all over the place the world.

Yeah, yeah. and uh, where're ahead of South Africa could be because we, uh, have a a a politically neutral environment. let say a little bit safer. Maybe exactly.

So this is fantastic. Thank you very much for showing us around Rob No worries. Brilliant. It's quite cool.

the lights come down if we need to change the bulbs. oh button and they all. They all drop down. and they drop down.

Yeah, so thought of everything they all. Germans German German Technology: We love the Germans on the Eev blog our um Sanic room mainly for military testing. Yep, we do component testing on the metal table over there emissions and Immunity for the military we usually get up to about 200 volts per meter, right? Fields So it's pretty important that we have a my sealed room. Okay, so how do So This is just a standard emissions anaco chamber.
Pretty much. Yeah, yeah, so it's a fully sealed, um, metal room. Semian means there's no absorption on the floor, right? Okay, which is why that's that's open and all the tests are generally at 1 meter. anyway.

So right? Okay, so the floor doesn't really matter in like this. not at that level, not at one. M Um, so when you get but but it is metal though, it is actually shielded. so we're in a faraday cage.

Essentially exactly. That's that's right. y So um, so we don't get any Ambience from outside. No.

TV signals. Sure, things like that. and for immunity as well, we need it shielded because uh, we don't want to interfere with anyone else. At 200 volts per meter we can, right? Especially when we got the airplanes flying over Mourne airport just up the road so that me test equipment can't affect the measure measurements we make is is pretty much it.

y yeah. so that's that's the rule. Generally only the only the device under test is inside. Yeah, that's that's what we're try to do.

It's not always possible because usually the device needs a lot of auxiliary equipment and so it's quite hard to isolate the two. sometimes sometimes impossible, right? Excellent. And this is a copper table. Yeah, usually the automotive and Military standards call up metal tables, right? Cuz most the products are connected to big metal chassis or or whatever.

So it's um. it's their compromise on how they do that. It standardizes it between between all the other labs as well. right? And how is the Earth arranged? This is just a localized.

This is just the um, it's not M building ground. Oh, it's actually building ground. Okay, so it is Main's Earth So it's a safety thing as well. Oh okay, got it.

Safety ground. This isn't a terribly big room. by no. We we found out we had so much work on that we needed another room that we could do this testing right.

So we prefer to use. uh, the Sisa 25 room. Yep. but if we have to, we can, we can come in here.

Rob What do we got here? All righty. this is our Um GTM basically a strip line. It It looks like a giant feed horn. It's actually a strip line.

Yeah, Similar principles I guess. but um yeah. So when we look inside, it will come obvious. Uh, so there's three tests we do in here.

There's emissions from a product. Yep. so we can actually measure the RF coming off something and measure it down at the bottom with a span. or yep.

So you can do transmitting products and have theous as well. so unintentional. more y yeah. and um, the opposite where we can test for susceptability we can get some really high Fields inside the inside between the Um, the septum and the ground.

Yep. And we also um, calibrate electric field sensors right? So we get a No One sensor and generate a KN field and put in the other meter the new meter and calibrate that against it, right? And this is like a miniature version up the top here. Yeah, that's right. So this is pretty much just a inside.
All right. You see anything so there's a there? Yeah, we get the field between there. There's also the same at the bottom right, so it's a nice that's a tri plate and so do you use this much? Is it a commonly used? uh, bit of Kit around here? Or is it we're starting to test? use it more. The standards are some to allow for this sort of products to be tested in here.

Probably not as much as we want at the stage. See, just just a connector in there. Yeah, it's it's it's actually a connector. so it's purely.

Yeah, it's purely passive. It's A. and let's take a look and up the end here. We've of course got our the magical RF an aoic cones there.

they just stop Reflections back down just to give it a more uniform field. Got it? So you can probably see in here? You're all to walk around in here. So we've got the septum here that's called the What? the septum I Think the septum? Okay right? All right and that's connected to the center pin of the Ah right? So that actually goes right down to the center pin of the RF connector at the end. That's right right down, narrow and um, all the rest outside is ground right? Is that yeah? that's Main's Earth I Take it, it's all Yeah.

Must be. Yeah, just for safety reasons. Again, Okay, yep, cuz if you accidentally put this out of voltage, you sort of Y Sure, you're in trouble. Okay, and and you only need the and you only need the cones at the end here.

Yeah, that's right. Um, cuz the main. we're only. it's only for really small equipment, so we usually put them right in the middle right and we get the field yep, generated between the plates.

got it and vice versa. For emissions, this all picked up. Yep. and there's all these conversion factors to bring it back to.

Uh, nice different things. I like it and the seal on the door here. as with all your Chambers is, uh, pretty well. Uh yeah, that's leage cut happens.

Yep. Chambers right. and there's a little window on it too so you can actually get in there and uh, see things under test. Just a little wave guide.

So yep, and this will go from what frequency D DC to Daylight much? Yeah, pretty much it goes right up to. We've had it up to a few gigs right, but it will do low frequency stuff as well if it goes right down, probably not. DC Obviously, exactly very low as well. Well, some RF designers would say a couple of gigas DC That's right, we're not quite at that level, right? and you've got no shortage of rooms here.

You're in the same room here. We've got another little uh, this is not much bigger than a closet. This one. it's that is very closet size.

but it's uh. so we do Elri field meters in here, just in a higher frequency range. We get up to about 18 gigs. Okay, the he field meters in here.
So how many Anaco rooms have you got here all up? There's a lot. We're up to 11 12, so we got at least 12 or 1 of them. Yeah, and they've all got specific uses. or pretty much yeah, a couple of them double up.

but um, generally they're all specific. Got it? Excellent. And once again, we've got a Uh and an RF Um, the RF connectors the patch panels on the wall so you can penetrate the chamber. All the chambers of the AC's filtered as well.

so if you want need AC inside we have to these filters. they usually up to 30 Megs Oh okay, right. a few th000 k, a few K up to 30 Mig or so 100 migs. That's if you are powering gear inside there or is it sometimes better off to power it from Um Power from batteries or something in there.

That depends on the product. Yeah, if it's battery powered then yeah for sure. Yeah, yeah. batteries aren't susceptible to anything exactly.

Batteries just work. You don't have to filter anything, but they go flat. they do. So how long would it take to test something in these? Chambers typically depends on the product.

Yeah, I mean some tests. We come in and we're done in a couple of hours. But uh, to do a full sweeper test, you're generally looking about a week. Got it? Yeah, so this is effectively what's in.

This is the uh strip line that's effectively inside that be in there? GTM Yeah, Yep. So we use this as Automotive testing for just very small Automotive components, right? And also we use that for testing. Um, fire alarms, little fire alarm detectors. Yep, we put them in in there and put a we field across them and make sure they don't go off or right.

Strong thing. So again, 150 mm strip line. There you go and it's just an end connector on the end or no, so that's connected to. Yeah, that's right, connected to the center pin of the end connector and the rest is grounded right.

Generate the field in between the two plates. so you would move this inside the an chamber right? of course. that's yep and where would the product actually be placed? And we try. We try and get it in the middle.

There's a couple of different tests of just a small product. We'll put them in the middle right? But another part of the testing is the we test just the cables so the maginus on the floor, obviously products up there and you lay the cables all the way out to the power supply there. Yep, cuz these are only for low frequencies. So lowest frequencies.

So right, what sort of frequencies we talking about? A MIG up to a couple hundred 400 Migs. And at those frequencies, it's the cables that the RF is going to coup on to, not the not the actual product. Rob These are your typical uh, wideband antennas you would use for testing. Yeah, that's right.

Tell us we use this. These ones for um, immunity testing. So we, uh, put a signal into it and uh, test a product for susceptibility, right? So this is basically a trans. This is a transmitting antenna.
Can they have dual use? Are they? um, we haven't calibrated these ones for emission for receiving, right? but there's no reason why not. Yep. and that looks like a log periodic design if I'm not mistaken. Um, yep, it's actually called a bilog a bog bog cuz the bigs here.

They simulate a by um biconical antenna and you said this is the L periodic part of it. So we go down to about 80 Megs. Uh yeah, roughly 80 Migs, up to 2 gigs. Very quite a broad band range.

maybe even maybe even down to 30. Megs Okay, 30 Megs that's DC for RF Engineers I'm sure there's lots of RF Engineers watching and they're going. Oh yeah, I know all about that, but uh I can't pretend to. Unfortunately I am not an RF engineer so it's almost black magic.

No, it's not, but it's all that complex math, right? That's that's it. Exactly y better you than me. What's this room? this is H significantly bigger than the others looked at Yep This is our Um radiated immunity room. Yep, it's generally tested to a standard I 6143 and basically we got a transmitting antenna.

We have a amplifier and Signal generator outside all computer controlled Y and we feed it in and uh, put the product down here on the table. and uh, we can monitor using Um cameras. Yep, that's why you've got these set up. They they your cameras and you can actually control those from different angles.

Yep, that's right, we can. uh, we set them up and monitor everything from outside cuz usually the fields aren't too high. We're talking 10 volt per meter, 3 Vol per meter, 10 Vol per meter. So it's not huge, but we'd rather not be in here and not not be in here at the same time.

Okay, and you've got an exhaust in here as well. You can, uh, drive cars into here. Yeah, we've tested a few a few big vehicles in here. Usually we do immunity, but also emissions as well on the vehicles, right? Uh, it's just for investigation.

We're not certified to do it right. Um, but it's quite useful. Sort of pre-compliance Yeah, those sort of pre compliance things. Yep, just to make sure you're in the ballpark and there's a good chance of passing the actual exactly yeah test.

And this doesn't have a copper table? No, this is. this. testing is for sort of commercial Tye type stuff. So your computers and and anything like that, right? Um, basically what we do is calibrate just a two-dimensional field.

We make sure we get a uniform field here and place the product right on the end, right? So it's got to be on the end of the bench, so it can make a difference if you're 30 cm backwards or something. Yeah, that's right. You lose a bit of field and we have to rotate whatever we're testing around. So all sides and that got it.

Um, the cones? Yeah, you've got them on the uh floor and they just to stop Reflections off there and and that will affect the uniformity of the field, right? So that's M main reason they there? And these are Ferite tiles on the floor. Yeah, don't get too close. they're all fall into bits on it, right? No, that's okay. but and they're on the walls as well.
Can you show us that? That's right? So we got them all on the front and the back right and the sides as well. Okay, and then we've overlay the cones to get high frequency. So these guys they go up to about a gig, right? Roughly 30 Megs to a gig. They're good for um, absorbing and the cones good for a gig and up to roughly 18 depending on their shape.

Yeah, so is that the secret to a good RF An Aoic chamber? You need these Ferite tiles. You can't just have a metal Faraday cage. That's right, you get too many um Reflections and cancellations and and that sort of carryon. Got it? And that's why one of the reasons as well don't do emissions in here cuz it's um, it's too.

you get too many Reflections And and that it's not a okay. So there you go. The key is the uh. the Ferite tiles, which they're the Ferite tiles are actually all on the walls here.

As you can see, this is the entry door where presumably they bring the uh cars in. Yeah, you can drive stuff in and each. I Assume that would be one of the major reasons why these things cost so much to set up. Yeah, last I heard they were like $1 $15 a tile a tile.

Count the number of tiles folks, and uh, you can work out how much. So you've got power inside here as well. That's filter three phase and single phase three phase y. Yep.

excellent. Can wi all sorts of stuff in here, right? And the floor is actually a faraday as well. It's again, it's a fully. it's a fully enclosed Y closed room.

Yep, y excellent. And there's once again, there's the Uh. There's the patch panel where we can get the test signals in and out and it's nice. And what is the foam made of? We're not really sure, are we? It's just a sponge type stuff, but it's the coating that goes on it, which is the Uh does the absorbing right.

The sponge just gives it the shape y So it is literally a, um, a sponge. Folks, It's nice. Excellent. That's a great room.

I Love it. So is this your second biggest room you've got? Or uh, um, probably second equal of the one we we'll look at soon, right? So no probably is a bit bigger and you've got that cardboard on the roof? They're actually not foam. They're cardboard. Are they different? Different type? Yeah.

Lot cheaper and easier to use. They're so much lighter. Got it? Yeah. And why is the mesh up there? Um I think that's bit of a historical thing.

I Think they used to test something. a few things in here that were generated a lot of heat, right? Okay, and things fell off the roof. Yeah, they were worried the TOs would comeing down underneath those white cones. It's all tiles.
Got it? Okay, y excellent. So the whole thing is. although there are gaps in the tiles on the roof though, yeah, that's right. I mean I've just tuned it Trying to minimize the use of tiles, they figure the reflections from here aren't going to affect our field that we that we're trying for in the front.

Got it. And there's that antenna we looked at before the wide band. this guy rated down to 25 migs and up to 2.7 gigs right? Board band nice. so you have a whole bunch of different antennas for different Us: yeah yeah this one like there's a Broadband but for the military and Automotive we usually split them up to get a bit met bit better Fields out of them yeah bit more gain so nice.

I like it and this is pretty. Oh it's not as well as it's not as uh good acoustically as the other rooms. The down the end. yeah down the end we can actually talk into it and our voice just vanishes.

but there when they're in those rooms where you fully enclosed by cones whereas this one is, that's right, not as much. but that's not. That's not the purpose. no it's not the purpose.

but but you have had people here doing audio. Chambers Get very quiet rooms. Yeah yeah, all right. what sort of gear we got here? Rob Um, this is a our new Flash um Spectrum analizer or test receiver.

As you can see we're going from 20 HZ up all the way up to 40 gigs y So it's very broad. Um, it's espcially designed to do EMC testing. It's got a special detectors, got an averaging detector and a Coy Peak detector and a couple of other. There's some a new RMS detector and things like that.

All right. And if you have to ask the price, you can't really afford it. Pretty much probably. Yeah, right, it's not cheap, that's for sure.

Yeah, especially to cover of those ranges. Excellent. And what have we got over here? We've got a 250 w L band amp. oh yeah, that's one to 2.5 gigs.

We' got another two stretch all the way up to 18 gigs. So generally we can pretty much get 200 Vols per meter. right? all the way up to uh, up to 18 gigs from roughly 30 migs to 18 gigs. Fantastic! Yeah, I Like it.

And once again, the doors are, uh, completely sealed. Theyve got the uh, fullon, um RF the yeah? Well, I don't know what you call them. Well, it's got the yeah, a lip which goes into there and then all the individual uh fingers on the uh yeah. So it's a lot B than just having the fingers touching each other right? Got it? And when you're in there, you can't hear people scream.

No, it doesn't quite well. When when testing's not working, you can, uh, have some fun in there beating your head against the wall. That' be great and we're in yet another room. What do we got? Okay, this is another Semart chamber, but this is designed around Ssper 25 specifications, right? Which is uh, Automotive testing components and or mainly components in here.
You can't get a so sort of one of those car computers anything. Yeah, any parts, anything from the ECM to console to gauges, right? Any part of it. Yeah, and we do emissions and Immunity in here. Got it? So what's this rig here set up to do? Uh, this is, um, an antenna for Fords actually Ford specification, right? And it's just a we spacer right? But it's um, just a little U biconical antenna and we inject our RF in there and wave it around the product.

you know, up to that far away from it, right? Okay, and um, yep. and we just check for susceptibility. So we're just simulating things like, um, people using cell phones and that inside the vehicles. Okay, you know, CB radios If you're in a cop car or something, they've got Somey Sure, they've got some pretty powerful RF transmitters.

Yeah, so we wave that around, not quite wave. we place that next to what we're testing and and see what happens. Got it? and I I Note the Um I've never seen so many RF uh, beads. little the little ferite beads on a cable before.

What's the Uh I'm not too sure how they work, but yeah, they're magic. Put enough of them on and uh yeah. So it's like if you got the antenna there, you've got a big metal. but you've got AIT that's an antenna.

So if you would have to space them a certain minimum or maximum distance apart to get your Effectiveness I would guess. Yeah. Excellent. And once again, we've got a copper uh table table yet and it's grounded to the wall.

so this okay, grounded to the the chamber, right? Okay, so this is grounded to the outer walls of the chamber. All the others have done that as well, right? And why why so many huge big strips like that? Um, that's again caught up in the standard. You've got to make sure you got a really good RF ground right. If you just had a little wire it be it wouldn't be good enough.

Be yeah. Jeez. Well, you've certainly nailed it there. With like a 8 in wide uh copper straps going right right to the back of the chamber, that's incredible.

And you've got cardboard everywhere everywhere. These are like just card board. Uh, can you take that one off? Yeah, you can see we got the tiles behind it. y so that like I said, they're up to a gig.

Good for good for a gig. Up to a gig and these guys will go up to about 18 gig right? So we got quite a good range in here so they would be like a carbon backed something like that. We we don't know. it's a bit of a mystery.

Magic I'm not sure you haven't looked into I Don't have to look into it so but it works. Yeah, it seems to work really well. We get get very good repeatable results. Yeah, this isn't as acoustically.

Oh, it's no, it's It's pretty good. It's not the same though, is it? It's not the same as the as the foam. No, it doesn't. They're so much smaller I Guess they.

Yep, but it's it's. brilliant. It's a room made of cardboard. It's great.
cardboard and ferite. I Think I'm in the wrong business EMC Pays pretty well. That's not my higher car. Unfortunately, that's my higher car.

See you.

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By YTB

19 thoughts on “Emc rf anechoic test facility tour – eevblog #202”
  1. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars dredweiner says:

    ❤️💟💝💖💗

  2. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars Ent says:

    Probably cost 30x the price if they used ferrite tiling.

  3. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars Pakistani Rave Asylum says:

    Hi, why is the same treatment not applied to the outside (facing outwards) of anechoic chamber?

  4. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars NorCal OutDoor says:

    1.8M 😩

  5. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars LTI Tomasz Luchowski says:

    ConePorn. But to me, almost every EMC testing technician is a ConeMan. And EMC is considered magic and sorcery.

  6. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars Niko says:

    Brilliant excellent wow brilliant excellent

  7. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars TheManLab7 says:

    There's one like this around this size close to where I live where they stick anything in there that needs to be testing from coffee machines for aircraft to lorry's and busses.
    It's a BAE SYSTEMS site, where they mostly specialise on HUD's n helmets and lots of other amazing cutting edge state of the art bits, which I love! 😍

    I know it's an older vid but I loves every second of it 👍🏻

  8. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars Yaakov Hassoun says:

    you can tell the interviewer understands close to nothing about what is said to him

  9. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars Edward135i says:

    At least a $1,000,000 of that budget went into that ridiculous door.

  10. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars David Brewer says:

    I love it when there is a value on something like this. A few years back I was the lead tech & built a LIDAR bathymeter system (oceanographic survey) which was worth a cool $7m….for one instrument!….It really puts things in perspective.

  11. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars googlesucks says:

    If you want to see a stoopid huge RF/EMI lab – google pax river ASIL . You can put a C17 Globemaster in it – suspended. Again – Stoopid big.

  12. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars Matt S says:

    Sweet tour guys – thank you. 🙂

  13. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars András Fuchs says:

    Fascinating! It would have been great to show an actual testing 🙂 Do you guys know if they use only one antenna in each room to measure the emission or do they have something like a sensor/antenna network (like a flat panel detector) so that they can have a more detailed emission-map in the end?

  14. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars Dazzer1234567 says:

    I don't geddit, that room sounds quite echo-y and "live", i thought
    it was supposed to be anechoic??!!

  15. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars The Kaiser says:

    Don't turn it on, take it apart!

  16. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars Peter Gizmos says:

    really cool video, thanks to the both of ya 🙂

  17. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars Irfan says:

    169

  18. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars Mourad HAFIDI says:

    If you are stuck there, you will NOT be able to make an emergency phone call LOL

  19. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars Gabriel Sá Pinto says:

    Oh Dave I would take Mitsubishi over Ferrari anyday…

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