New automotive EMC test equipment

TRaC has purchased new automotive transient test equipment. TRaC customers can now benefit from testing automotive Electronic Sub-Assemblies (ESAs), with a continuous high current rating to the latest automotive transient specification ISO7637-2:2004, complementing the existing equipment.

Vehicles are in a very different environment from a house or office where large voltage transients are caused from the vehicle during a typical journey. These transients include cranking the engine, switching of large inductive loads (e.g. air conditioning), cables being disconnected inadvertently and other forms voltage spike.

ISO7637-2:2004 forms the basis of almost all the specific manufacturer specifications as well as the automotive directive 2004/104/EC (used for e-marking) and also products that are used in this environment to the EMC Directive (2004/108/EC).  The new NSG5000 system enables all the core pulse parameters to be adjusted to meet an individual manufacturer specification

In addition to meeting transient immunity legislative requirements, this system will enable TRaC customers to benefit from an increased scope of manufacturers test specifications with most of the main vehicle manufacturer specifications covered, Ford, BMW, GM, Toyota to name but a few.

To complement our growing military testing scope this additional test equipment also enables us to offer testing to DEF STAN 61-5 part 6: 2009 for equipment fitted to military vehicles. This enables very specialised high power products used in these vehicles to be tested thoroughly before entering active service.

ISO7637-2 forms just part of the overall technical challenges presented to engineers designing products for automotive use. Other requirements (covering both military and civil) include conducted and radiated emissions and radiated susceptibility tests.

In addition to being UKAS accredited, TRaC is appointed by the Vehicle Certification Agency (VCA) in the UK as an approved test house and Technical Service providing a complete solution for automotive products.

TRaC performs vehicle testing on a wide range of products and whole vehicles for both civil and defence customers in our specialised EMC test chambers which are installed with rolling roads and fume extraction. Using our EMC expertise and our partners facilities we are able to...Read the full article