Cheap EMC labs. Any experiance with Sunfire Labs?

[implor]

I stumbled on Sunfire Labs that has on the surface very interesting offer. Fixed low pricing and free re-testing.

But when something sound to good to be true, it usually is.

So does anyone have personal experience with Sunfire Labs?

I want to do EMC for CE / 61000-4.

https://www.sunfiretesting.com/

[tom66]

Does seem too good to be true. General rule I've come across is a day in the lab costs $/£/€1k - there may be a slight regional variations but, in general, that isn't going to get you much more than a day at the lab.  You could probably get EMC for emissions and immunity done for a basic consumer product in 1-2 days, ESD would be more time on top unless the product has no interfaces.

You still need to compile the technical file which is at least another day's work for the technical author for a basic product.     I've encountered a test house that had automated a lot of the latter process, but it's still quite a bit of work.

[Psi]

Depends what you want, do you want to test the thing and get real data or do you want to check a tickbox and get the paperwork.   

Looking at their website it seems pretty legit, more legit that some of the other test houses we've seen doing dodgy things on this forum.

If they were terrible Harris / Sparkfun / iridium wouldn't want their name on the about page.

[KE5FX]

It sounds like they act as some kind of broker for excess/unused time at existing labs.  Seems legit enough.

[implor]

Does seem too good to be true. General rule I've come across is a day in the lab costs $/£/€1k - there may be a slight regional variations but, in general, that isn't going to get you much more than a day at the lab.  You could probably get EMC for emissions and immunity done for a basic consumer product in 1-2 days, ESD would be more time on top unless the product has no interfaces.

You still need to compile the technical file which is at least another day's work for the technical author for a basic product.     I've encountered a test house that had automated a lot of the latter process, but it's still quite a bit of work.

€1k is still super cheap in my experience. Last few years we paid €12-15k for 2 days (10m chamber) + report. Even getting the cost down to €5-6k would be amazing.

Depends what you want, do you want to test the thing and get real data or do you want to check a tickbox and get the paperwork.   

Looking at their website it seems pretty legit, more legit that some of the other test houses we've seen doing dodgy things on this forum.

If they were terrible Harris / Sparkfun / iridium wouldn't want their name on the about page.

Yah that's why it would be great to find someone with personal experience with them. I want a real legit test but I don't require a accredited lab. We have used labs before that's not accredited for some tests but they are still competent and know what they are doing. Biggest problem with my local labs is the cost (see above).

It sounds like they act as some kind of broker for excess/unused time at existing labs.  Seems legit enough.

Maybe.

[Psi]

Email Sparkfun and ask if it's true that they use them and how they find the company to work with.

Might take some emails to get past their customer support but the owners of sparkfun are pretty nice.

Or post on the sparkfun community forum. Their engineers are more likely to hang out there so probably easier to get in contact with someone who can answer the technical questions.

[implor]

Email Sparkfun and ask if it's true that they use them and how they find the company to work with.

Might take some emails to get past their customer support but the owners of sparkfun are pretty nice.

Or post on the sparkfun community forum. Their engineers are more likely to hang out there so probably easier to get in contact with someone who can answer the technical questions.

Haha. I had the same Idea! But I could not find a simple way of contacting anyone directly at sparkfun. Might try customer support.

[nctnico]

Does seem too good to be true. General rule I've come across is a day in the lab costs $/£/€1k - there may be a slight regional variations but, in general, that isn't going to get you much more than a day at the lab.  You could probably get EMC for emissions and immunity done for a basic consumer product in 1-2 days, ESD would be more time on top unless the product has no interfaces.

IME consumer / industrial CE + FCC takes about 2.5 days for testing (conducted & radiated emissions, conducted and radiated immunity, ESD and surge) for a product with two operating modes. Radiated immunity takes most of the time. But I do tend to push the technician. Some like to stop at 16:30. I leave after 17:00...

[wilhe_jo]

To be honest, I cannot see how this kind of pricing could work out.

I have a 3m chamber and I own the equipment to do precompliance testing.

With 1k a day and a unusual 8h/day you would make 20-30% below some random car repair shop
..with an upfront investment in the order of the house of the repair shop ..

To be fair, if you run used equipment (like I do) the numbers get more favourable...but 1k/day is more than tough!
If your're working on your own...maybe...without any debt.

The moment you get employees, or you factor in investments, it's pretty thought.
Or just get accredited. 50-100k for calibration + some 10k for bureaucracy es normal.

Just do the math.

Yes, you can get test times down by a lot with multi-tone immunity testing or modern receivers... But that's quite some investment too.

Well, I sell the engineering to get compliant and not just the testing... so it's a very different business case.


73

[nctnico]

To be honest, I cannot see how this kind of pricing could work out.

I have a 3m chamber and I own the equipment to do precompliance testing.

With 1k a day and a unusual 8h/day you would make 20-30% below some random car repair shop
..with an upfront investment in the order of the house of the repair shop ..

I agree. An EMC lab is more likely to cost 2k to 3k euro a day. Maybe the 1k euro number is for half a day. The very low cost one-man band I use for more serious pre-compliance testing (beyond my own abilities) already charges 1400 euro per day.

[implor]

To be honest, I cannot see how this kind of pricing could work out.

I have a 3m chamber and I own the equipment to do precompliance testing.

With 1k a day and a unusual 8h/day you would make 20-30% below some random car repair shop
..with an upfront investment in the order of the house of the repair shop ..

To be fair, if you run used equipment (like I do) the numbers get more favourable...but 1k/day is more than tough!
If your're working on your own...maybe...without any debt.

The moment you get employees, or you factor in investments, it's pretty thought.
Or just get accredited. 50-100k for calibration + some 10k for bureaucracy es normal.

Just do the math.

Yes, you can get test times down by a lot with multi-tone immunity testing or modern receivers... But that's quite some investment too.

Well, I sell the engineering to get compliant and not just the testing... so it's a very different business case.


73

As you say immunity testing takes a lot of time. Most technician fiddle their tums and drink coffee during this phase.

If you are savvy and have an optimized setup you could do another customers test (like ESD) at the same time. If you are supplied with multiple EUT you could run Immunity, EFT+SURGE and ESD at the same time. Both Immunity and EFT+SURGE is more or less automated (maybe need for 1 antenna change).

[nctnico]

Doing tests in parallel isn't going to work as test labs typically want to use the same DUT. Also, immunity tests typically run for 20 minutes or so each before needing to change orientation. That is too short to concentrate on a different test. And in case something goes wrong and the DUT needs tweaking, the customer keeps two labs occupied instead of one.

[tom66]

To be honest, I cannot see how this kind of pricing could work out.

I have a 3m chamber and I own the equipment to do precompliance testing.

With 1k a day and a unusual 8h/day you would make 20-30% below some random car repair shop
..with an upfront investment in the order of the house of the repair shop ..

I agree. An EMC lab is more likely to cost 2k to 3k euro a day. Maybe the 1k euro number is for half a day. The very low cost one-man band I use for more serious pre-compliance testing (beyond my own abilities) already charges 1400 euro per day.

We use a local UK lab which charges £900 per day or £500 per half day for anechoic chamber + one engineer to run the show;  that is good for 10MHz - 18GHz if I recall correctly.  But you're expected to turn up yourself and guide the selection of test bands; the engineer runs the kit, changes the antennas, and checks everything is calibrated.   He won't advise on what might need to be done to get a pass.  For another £1k or so, you can get a certified test report.

[nctnico]

To be honest, I cannot see how this kind of pricing could work out.

I have a 3m chamber and I own the equipment to do precompliance testing.

With 1k a day and a unusual 8h/day you would make 20-30% below some random car repair shop
..with an upfront investment in the order of the house of the repair shop ..

I agree. An EMC lab is more likely to cost 2k to 3k euro a day. Maybe the 1k euro number is for half a day. The very low cost one-man band I use for more serious pre-compliance testing (beyond my own abilities) already charges 1400 euro per day.

We use a local UK lab which charges £900 per day or £500 per half day for anechoic chamber + one engineer to run the show;  that is good for 10MHz - 18GHz if I recall correctly.  But you're expected to turn up yourself and guide the selection of test bands; the engineer runs the kit, changes the antennas, and checks everything is calibrated.   He won't advise on what might need to be done to get a pass.  For another £1k or so, you can get a certified test report.

That sounds a bit half way. The lab I typically go to has everything highly automated through software and the software 'knows' what to test based on the selected standard. The lab costs more per hour, but they are super efficient time wise.

[hwasti]

More than dozen replies in and no one has actually visited the website and read the offer.

It says "From $999"

It never says they will do the certification for $1K. Just says that they will charge $1K or more. That includes charging $10K, or even $100K.

How about reading what's written before spinning fantasies about how they can do what they never actually offered to do?

[implor]

More than dozen replies in and no one has actually visited the website and read the offer.

It says "From $999"

It never says they will do the certification for $1K. Just says that they will charge $1K or more. That includes charging $10K, or even $100K.

How about reading what's written before spinning fantasies about how they can do what they never actually offered to do?

Think you misunderstood. The start of the conversation was that Tom66 said 1k/day is pretty standard (in his experance). So question was then if they could do it all in a day.

At least I saw the "from" label and you always market the lowest possible price.

[Psi]

I do recall some EMC test quotes we got at work years ago, the quotes we got where wildly different from one test house to another for exactly the same thing. I cant recall the exact prices but the spread from low to high was something like 5k to 15k.

I think there's a lot of overcharging if they think you're the type of company who can pay it vs can't