New standard renders many EFT testers obsolete

10 September 2003 Test & Measurement

EFT testing: The basic standard for testing immunity of electronic equipment to Electrical Fast Transients (EFTs), EN61000-4-4, is soon to change. This standard was published in 1995 and is used as one of the immunity tests called up in the generic standards and all product-specific standards. This is according to EMC test specialist Schaffner, who explains further.

Amendment 2 was published in 2001 and is due to become part of the EN61000-4-4 standard on 1 July 2004. On this date all of older generation EFT testers currently in use will become noncompliant and therefore obsolete. There has always been ambiguity in the original standard as the EFT pulse shape was only defined into 50 Ω load impedance. This has meant that equipment to be tested with any other input impedance would not actually be tested in conformance with the standard.

Worse still, different manufacturers' test equipments are liable to produce different test waveforms into loads other than 50 Ω. Clearly, the purpose of any standard and the equipment to test to it is to produce accurate and equally importantly, repeatable test conditions.

With the original wording of the standard there has always been concern that this is not the case. There have been a number of attempts to overcome this problem, culminating in the adoption of Amendment 2, which defines the pulse shape into 1 kΩ as well as 50 Ω. This overcomes the loading problem and makes the standard now truly repeatable.

When the amended standard comes into force most existing test equipment will not meet the additional pulse shape requirement. Schaffner is offering a service to anyone carrying out EFT testing in which it will advise if test equipment currently being used (from any manufacturer), will meet the requirements of EN61000-4-4 including Amendment 2. Should any such test equipment be found to be noncompliant, Schaffner is also offering to buy back the redundant equipment, against the purchase of a new, compliant Schaffner product.

www.schaffner.com

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