Robert - I remember something that Larry Smith said once. He was failing EMI at some frequency, and called in the EMC guy. The EMC guy looked for lambda/4 distances on the PC board, and found some bypass caps at that distance from one of the chips. The transfer impedance at lambda/4 is infinite, so the bypass caps weren't bypassing. You're lambda/4 (air) is 4.292 inches. Trap cap value is ~ 56pF. Larry - feel free to correct anything that I missinterpreted. Ken -----Original Message----- From: si-list-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:si-list-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx]On Behalf Of Americomrh@xxxxxxx Sent: Wednesday, August 17, 2005 1:27 PM To: si-list@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Subject: [SI-LIST] Radiated Emissions continued Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Thanks for the informative replies with regard to the radiation emissions question. Here is more info detailing the problem. The chassis, backplane, and front panel are all grounded. The PCB has frame ground floods on both the upper and lower layers. The front to back distance of the cavity is about 5.5 inches. The left to right width of the cavity is about 15 inches, but there is some intervening metal for card guides. It is mostly open. The top to bottom size is 1.3125 inches. The other anomoly is where it comes from. I believe the frequency is actually 687.5MHz. We have 125MHz on the board. At one time, I divided it by 2 to get 62.5MHz to drive some logic so I assumed it was the 11th harmonic. I changed the 62.5MHz to 41.67MHz, but the 687.5MHz did not move. Several other lower level spikes did move, but they are not a concern. The 687.5MHz appears to be the 5 1/2 harmonic. Fourier says that can't be. Perhaps a chip does a divide by 2 internally which I don't know about. We tried bypass caps on the power supplies as small as 100pf without effect. Robert Hanson -- Attached file included as plaintext by Ecartis -- Return-Path: <Gary.Miller@xxxxxxxxx> Received: from rly-xa04.mx.aol.com (rly-xa04.mail.aol.com [172.20.64.40]) by air-xa03.mail.aol.com (v107.10) with ESMTP id MAILINXA31-67430337d224a; Wed, 17 Aug 2005 09:12:54 -0400 Received: from mimesweeper2.hubbell.com (mimesweeper2.hubbell.com [63.111.141.185]) by rly-xa04.mx.aol.com (v107.10) with ESMTP id MAILRELAYINXA43-67430337d224a; Wed, 17 Aug 2005 09:12:50 -0400 Received: from CRPORGCTNW03-IA.HUBBELL.COM (gwise.hubbell.com [63.111.141.139]) by mimesweeper2.hubbell.com (8.12.11/8.12.11) with ESMTP id j7HDvhe8009428 for <Americomrh@xxxxxxx>; Wed, 17 Aug 2005 09:57:43 -0400 (envelope-from Gary.Miller@xxxxxxxxx) Received: from HUBBELL_GWGATE-MTA by CRPORGCTNW03-IA.HUBBELL.COM with Novell_GroupWise; Wed, 17 Aug 2005 09:12:49 -0400 Message-Id: <s302ff91.086@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> X-Mailer: Novell GroupWise Internet Agent 6.0.4 Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2005 09:12:40 -0400 From: "Gary Miller" <Gary.Miller@xxxxxxxxx> To: <Americomrh@xxxxxxx> Subject: Re: Response to EMI Questions Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Content-Disposition: inline X-AOL-IP: 63.111.141.185 Robert, The resonant cavity is an interesting thought. What is the Q of a reson= ant cavity? The chassis, backplane, and front panel are all grounded. The PCB has fr= ame ground floods on both the upper and lower layers. The front to back dis= tance of the cavity is about 5.5 inches. The left to right width of the cav= ity is about 15 inches, but there is some intervening metal for card guides.= It is mostly open. The top to bottom size is 1.3125 inches.=20 The other anomoly is where it comes from. I believe the frequency is ac= tually 687.5MHz. We have 125MHz on the board. At one time, I divided it by= 2 to get 62.5MHz to drive some logic so I assumed it was the 11th harmonic.= I changed the 62.5MHz to 41.67MHz, but the 687.5MHz did not move. Several= other lower level spikes did move, but they are not a concern. The 687.5MH= z appears to be the 5 1/2 harmonic. Fourier says that can't be. Perhaps a=20= chip does a divide by 2 internally which I don't know about. We tried bypas= s caps on the power supplies as small as 100pf without effect. Perhaps we can discuss this when you arrive. For now, we are moving tow= ard a plastic front panel as a solution. regards Gary Miller Pulsecom >>> <Americomrh@xxxxxxx> 08/16/05 07:42PM >>> =20 Gary, =20 My first thought is that a resonance frequency(s) may be inherent in your=20 chassis. A quarter wave length at 688 MHz is about 4.36 in. which can exis= t=20 within your structure. Any harmonics of 688 MHz (assuming they exist) woul= d=20 have wave lengths of decreasing distance. Your front panel is grounded,=20 how-wire, Cu, braid, other and how long? I assume that the enclosure is al= so=20 metal, but it is floating. Therefore can I assume it is isolated from the=20= front=20 panel? Also, what is "ground," i.e. chassis, earth, green wire, etc.? =20 When the front panel is removed the cavity is eliminated which stops the=20 build up of resonant modes. Now this is all conjecture on my part in that=20= I=20 have not experienced any of your development knowledge; therefore, it is ju= st an=20 educated guess. =20 Robert =20 message dated 8/16/2005 8:01:22 A.M. Pacific Daylight Time, =20 Gary.Miller@xxxxxxxxx writes: Robert, We have just experienced an unexpected EMI phenomena, and I would like to=20 add a question to our list of questions. One of our units had an emission problem at 688MHz. The device is roughly=20 5" x 5" x 1.5" with a grounded, metal front panel. When we removed the fro= nt=20 panel (leaving a gaping hole) the overall emission reduced by 20dB. How is= =20 this possible? We are looking at isolating the panel from ground as our=20 current solution. Gary Miller Pulsecom ******************************************************************* This email and any files transmitted with it are confidential and intended solely for the use of the individual or entity to whom they are addressed. If you have received this email in error please notify the system manager. This footnote also confirms that this email message has been swept for the presence of computer viruses. www.hubbell.com - Hubbell Incorporated ------------------------------------------------------------------ To unsubscribe from si-list: si-list-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with 'unsubscribe' in the Subject field or to administer your membership from a web page, go to: //www.freelists.org/webpage/si-list For help: si-list-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with 'help' in the Subject field List FAQ wiki page is located at: http://si-list.org/wiki/wiki.pl?Si-List_FAQ List technical documents are available at: http://www.si-list.org List archives are viewable at: //www.freelists.org/archives/si-list or at our remote archives: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/si-list/messages Old (prior to June 6, 2001) list archives are viewable at: http://www.qsl.net/wb6tpu ______________________________________________________________________ All email being sent to or from SRC Computers, Inc. will be scanned by a third party scanning service. ______________________________________________________________________ ------------------------------------------------------------------ To unsubscribe from si-list: si-list-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with 'unsubscribe' in the Subject field or to administer your membership from a web page, go to: //www.freelists.org/webpage/si-list For help: si-list-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with 'help' in the Subject field List FAQ wiki page is located at: http://si-list.org/wiki/wiki.pl?Si-List_FAQ List technical documents are available at: http://www.si-list.org List archives are viewable at: //www.freelists.org/archives/si-list or at our remote archives: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/si-list/messages Old (prior to June 6, 2001) list archives are viewable at: http://www.qsl.net/wb6tpu