Electrostatic Discharge, Surge, Dips & Interruptions Testing
Electrostatic Discharge Testing
Electrostatic Discharge, or ESD, testing is a common requirement, particularly for shipping products to Europe. PTI has multiple test stations with appropriate ground planes and table heights for fast and easy ESD testing. PTI is able to generate up to 25kV on a single ESD discharge, and the testing is done with a handheld device that can discharge into the air or make contact with a metal component (like a screw) around the outside of the device.
Surge Testing
Surge testing is another genre of tests that generally are considered part of electromagnetic testing, but are not done in an EMC chamber. Many standards internationally, and particularly the European standards require that both the AC power lines and the I/O lines of electronic products (particular medical equipment, IT equipment, and test / measurement equipment) comply. An example of some of the tests we can perform include:
- Burst testing: this is a sinusoidal imposed on a power line or I/O line from 500V to 2,000V and from 5nsec to 100nsec at 1kHz to 100kHz (typically done for IEC 61000-4-4)
- Surge testing: 500V – 2,000V impulse along a power or I/O line (typically done for IEC 61000-4-5)
- Conducted Immunity: This is broadband noise from 1Vrms to 100Vrms from 10kHz to 18GHz (actually range can be specified within these limits) (typically done for IEC 61000-4-6)
- Voltage Dips and Drop-outs: This is programmatically reducing or removing the power to a device for a few cycles up to a few seconds. (typically done for IEC 61000-4-11)
