EMC/EMI/ESD Standards for Household Electrical Appliances and Portable Tools

This web site is being maintained by John R. Barnes, who was the President and Chief Engineer of dBi Corporation from 2002 to September 30, 2013, when we closed because ObamaCrap made it too expensive for us to remain in business.

John R. Barnes KS4GL, PE, NCE, NCT, ESDC Eng, ESDC Tech, PSE, Master EMC Design Engineer, SM IEEE
December 19, 2010
jrbarnes@iglou.com

Most household electrical appliances and portable tools heat, cool, or run electric motors to perform various tasks.

The United States expicitly exempts digital circuitry in appliances from regulation under FCC 47 CFR Part 15 (FCC Part 15) in Paragraph 15.103(d), as long as it complies with Sections 15.5 and 15.29.

Canada explicitly exempts digital circuitry in appliances and most portable tools from regulation under ICES-003 in Paragraph 1.2.2.

The European Union (EU), Australia, and New Zealand require these products to meet:

Thus, to be sold in the EU, Australia, and New Zealand, (unintentional radiator) household electrical appliances and portable tools products must meet:

Combining all of these requirements:

Disturbance Power on all cables must be measured from 30-300MHz, to the limits in EN 55014-1 (AS/NZS CISPR 14.1) Table 2.

Conducted Emissions on AC plugs, load terminals, and other terminals must be measured from 148.5kHz-30MHz, to the limits in EN 55014-1 (AS/NZS CISPR 14.1) Table 1.

Personal computers, personal computer monitors, and television sets, with a rated power <=600W, must meet the EN 61000-3-2 (AS/NZS 61000.3.2) Class D (Table 3) Harmonics limits. Lighting equipment must meet the Class C (Table 2) Harmonics limits. Portable tools and non-professional arc-welding equipment must meet the Class B (1.5 times Table 1) Harmonics limits. All other products must meet Class A (Table 1) Harmonics limits. Section 7 exempts certain products from these Harmonics requirements:

Products that are unlikely to produce significant voltage fluctuations, or flicker, do not have to be tested for Flicker (EN 61000.3.2 Section 6,1). Otherwise ITE products must be tested to EN 61000-3-3 (AS/NZS 61000.3.3).

These products must meet EN 61000-4-2 (AS/NZS 61000.4.2) for Electrostatic Discharge (ESD) up to:

Indirect discharges to the horizontal coupling plane and vertical coupling plane only have to be tested at +/-4kV. Contact and air discharges to the product must be tested at the limit voltages and at intermediate voltages.

These products must meet EN 61000-4-3 (AS/NZS 61000.4.3) for radiated electromagnetic fields with 80% amplitude modulation at 1kHz, at 3V/m for 80-1000MHz.

These products must meet EN 61000-4-4 (AS/NZS 61000.4.4) for Electrical Fast Transient/Bursts (EFTB) at 5kHz, at

These products must meet EN 61000-4-5 (AS/NZS 61000.4.5) for Surges, at +/-2kV line-to-earth and +/-1kV line-to-line on AC inputs.

For surge tests, the product must be tested at the limit voltages and at intermediate voltages.

These products must meet EN 61000-4-6 (AS/NZS 61000.4.6) for Conducted Immunity with 80% amplitude modulation at 1kHz, for: 150KHz-230MHz at

These products must meet EN 61000-4-11 (AS/NZS 61000.4.11) for Voltage Dips on AC inputs to:

DISCLAIMER
These web pages are freely offered to anyone who wishes to use them. No warranty for their use is expressed or implied. The most-current versions may be downloaded from the our web site at http://www.dbicorporation.com/.

These web pages can point you to regulations and standards applying to your product(s), but please refer to the regulations and standards themselves when deciding how to test your product(s). A regulation's or standard's title gives you strong clues as to what it covers, but its scope (usually section 1) tells you for sure. Carefully check the footnotes in tables, to see if your product falls into an exception that lets you avoid unnecessary tests (or sometimes requires additional special testing). Exceptions that can help you also sometimes hide in the Test Setup section (usually section 7). Also check the Test Report section (usually section 10) for any special documentation required.

COMMENTS
If you refer to one or more of these documents in written communications, please attribute them to http://www.dbicorporation.com/. Similarly, if you link to them from your own web page(s), we would appreciate an E-mail to jrbarnes@iglou.com giving the universal resource link (URL) so that we may provide a reciprocal link.

Please send critiques, corrections, and/or additions to jrbarnes@iglou.com , or by snailmail to:
John Barnes
216 Hillsboro Ave
Lexington, KY 40511-2105

dBi Corporation was a one-man test house (testing laboratory) based in Lexington, Kentucky, testing a wide variety of commercial electronic products for electromagnetic compatibility (EMC), electromagnetic interference (EMI), and electrostatic discharge (ESD) under its ISO 17025 accreditation. dBi was founded in Winchester, Kentucky in 1995 by Donald R. Bush, shortly after he retired from 30 years service with IBM Lexington's/ Lexmark's EMC Lab. John R. Barnes, who'd worked with Don at IBM Lexington and Lexmark, bought dBi in 2002 after Don's death, and moved the company to Lexington, Kentucky. John closed dBi at 11:59pm EDT on September 30, 2013, because ObamaCrap had increased operating expenses to the point that we could no longer afford to remain in business.

We'd like to thank all of the clients who chose dBi to test their products from 1995 to 2013. Below is a brief summary of our accomplishments during the 18 years we were in business.

From 1995 to 2001, under Don Bush's ownership and operation, dBi:

From 2002 to 2013, under John Barnes' ownership and operation, dBi:

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Last revised December 19, 2010.