Products > Test Equipment
Who buys the ultra-expensive test equipment, and what's it used for?
Fungus:
--- Quote from: NF6X on March 25, 2024, 03:06:29 pm ---EMC testing for a single product can cost over $50k at the outside lab.
--- End quote ---
:)
The other people who buy that equipment are, of course, the "outside labs".
They have to own the stuff that nobody else can afford...
Fried Chicken:
--- Quote from: NF6X on March 25, 2024, 03:06:29 pm ---
--- Quote from: Fried Chicken on March 25, 2024, 12:59:07 am ---
--- Quote from: nctnico on March 24, 2024, 10:59:07 pm ---Or take something simple like Bluetooth. FCC wants this tested for spurious up to 26.5GHz! CE radiated immunity testing goes up to 6GHz nowadays.
--- End quote ---
WHat?!No way. 26.5GHz??
--- End quote ---
Yes, really. I had to put commercial products with Bluetooth radios through FCC part 15 certification at my last job. The defense-related products I work on at my current job get tested for radiated immunity up to 40 GHz; EMC testing for a single product can cost over $50k at the outside lab.
--- End quote ---
Why test up to 40GHz?! Are we talking emission or irradiation?
NF6X:
Irradiation (that is, radiated susceptibility). The defense items I've had to have tested so far were only tested for emissions up to 18 GHz, but only because they weren't intentional emitters. If they had antennas, then the radiated emissions requirements would have extended up to 40 GHz.
NF6X:
I should have written more about the why question:
For susceptibility, you don't want your electronics to get burned out, your munitions to blow up, or your life support systems to fail when you key up a nearby radio transmitter or get illuminated by a radar, whether the emitters are installed in the same vehicle or just nearby. For emissions, you don't want your electronics to jam nearby radios or radars. Everything has to play well together, while your opponents are trying to kill you at the same time.
US military items with EMC requirements are usually required to pass MIL-STD-461 requirements. It's a very tough specification to meet!
One commercial device I had to have tested as a plain old FCC part 15 device had problematic spurs from a roughly 16 MHz clock over the limit line all the way up to about 1 GHz. Those high upper limits such as 18 GHz, 26.5 GHz, and 40 GHz are there because harmonics of digital signals cause emissions problems even well beyond the 50th harmonic of the fundamental.
KE5FX:
--- Quote from: tautech on March 24, 2024, 09:18:55 pm ---
--- Quote from: Bicurico on March 24, 2024, 09:15:02 pm ---That device is a masterpiece. It allows to monitor any reasonable RF signal transmitted up to 26GHz.
--- End quote ---
As you also can with SSA5085A for just $21k.
--- End quote ---
On the surface, yes, this is just a $400K receiver that does the same job as any number of cheap spectrum analyzers (although I'd put it up against something like the high-end Signal Hound models if I wanted to economize.) But you're paying for the software apps along with the hardware.
Also, the ESMD is preselected, all the way down to 8 kHz apparently. If your neighborhood 3-letter agency hooks up their quarter-mile rhombic or Sterba curtain or whatever to the antenna jack, or if the Navy uses it onboard a ship with a powerful radar antenna within rock-throwing distance, the ESMD will still work, while they won't find enough pieces of the spectrum analyzer to send back for warranty repair.
Preselection and crunchproof front ends are no joke, particularly at HF-UHF frequencies where you can't just throw a YIG filter or two at it. This box would probably be half the price if its tuning range could start at 1 GHz rather than 8 kHz.
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