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Raspberry Pi Passes EU Electromagnetic Compatibility Testing
A week ago, we posted news of the delay that the Raspberry Pi Foundation faced because of a requirement that their boards be tested to comply with EU regulations. Now, the word is in, and the Raspberry Pi passed those tests without needing any modifications. From their post describing the ordeal: "The Raspberry Pi had to pass radiated and conducted emissions and immunity tests in a variety of configurations (a single run can take hours), and was subjected to electrostatic discharge (ESD) testing to establish its robustness to being rubbed on a cat. It’s a long process, involving a scary padded room full of blue cones, turntables that rise and fall on demand, and a thing that looks a lot like a television aerial crossed with Cthulhu."
Thank goodness it passed the cat rubbing test. We Europeans love rubbing electronic devices on our cats.
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got a frosty!
I can name that tune in ONE NOTE !!
Am I the only one that desperately wants to see pictures of the Cthulhu antenna?
Bad kitty! That's my Pot Pi! No! You're a bad kitty!
Also, cats.
Am I the only one scared by these guys?????
They think they can design a PCB yet are scared of some simple measuring equipment. (I have been involved with and designed several products which had to go through CE testing and that stuff is NOT scary if you known what they are doing).
I really hope the summary is just joking about the antennna.... if not: stay away from Raspberry Pi: it is designed by clueless idiots.
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Since everything that wants a CE mark needs to comply with EMC I don't really see it as a problem. I don't want my rasberry pi device killing my pacemaker.
Doesn't every product, everywhere, pass this test?
So, this is worthy of the front page why?
holy shizznit another slashdot update on the raspberry pi, which is incrementally moving forward from the last update! next update - "raspberry pi recieves email status update." holy cow people, this is like xeno's arrow - with each update, we are making less and less progress towards the goal.
Pictures of the cat or it didn't happen.
You are an idiot.
Could someone enlighten me on why the testing would include ESD sensitivity?
Devices that don't die when you pick them up on a non-humid day certainly are nice; but(outside of safety-critical medical and controls applications) dropping dead if handled without ESD precautions doesn't seem like a safety risk, or a greater RF emissions violation than the spark doing the killing, or otherwise troublesome in a regulatory sort of way. Likely to annoy customers, quite possibly; but not likely to do much harm in the process...
I smell a pre-orderer....
After the testing you will be baked and then there will be cake.
Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana.
The curve for early adoption of this gizmo is steeeep!
All electronics that are going to be sold, as finished products, in the European economic area (EEA) have to be tested and comply with European standards. It's the short answer, and I'm skipping a lot of details.
The problem the Raspberry-foundation faced was that it was initially not a "finished" product, more of a DIY kit. Once it became clear it was more of a "consumer" product it had to comply and be tested.
The same applies in the US where the FCC has the same role, but labs do the actual testing in both jurisdictions.
From TFA:
A cute story. Radiated immunity testing involves hitting the Raspberry Pi hard with narrow-band EM radiation, while checking (amongst many other things) that the device is still able to send Ethernet frames to a hub. The first time the team did this, the light on the hub stopped blinking: no frames were making it through. They did it again: still nothing. Finally, they discovered that the hub (which, I should point out, gave every appearance of being CE marked, so it should have been able to get through these tests itself) was being knocked out every time somebody pressed the button. Jimmy used a longer cable, put the hub outside the field, and found that the Raspberry Pi got through its immunity tests with no problems at all.
Too bad their CE certified ethernet hub failed the CE testing.... remember kids, this is what you get when you buy cheap stuff from cheap manufacturing countries.... oh wait!
To quote a source on the web:
"If a product is not susceptible to ESD and fast transients, for instance, it will not fail as readily during normal use. This is not only important from a performance standpoint, but from a safety and legal liability standpoint as well. Therefore, it is useful to use interference generators in the product design and development stage, as well as in the CE mark certification process. "
http://www.conformity.com/artman/publish/printer_166.shtml
They do have about 2000 in their hands now.
http://www.raspberrypi.org/archives/945
This is a charity and this is the first time they have gone through this process. There are bigger companies still have this issue. With pi they are just being more transparent about it.
Certification avoids stories like "It was discovered today that Raspberry Pi computers interfere with insulin pumps..."
[captcha: breaks]
To paraphrase Wernher von Braun*:
We can sell a Raspberry Pi in Europe, but sometimes the paperwork is overwhelming.
----
*"We can lick gravity, but sometimes the paperwork is overwhelming."
I'm going to use these to make internet connected disposable pirate radio base stations. :D
It's really not that complex of a device, if any Dick and Jane manufacturer can whip out Arduino clones making this isn't too much harder. It's a populated PCB for crying out loud, not a OpenPandora. It's not that hard. This is like saying that woodchips are vaporware...
Not just the CE, but the FCC, the Aussie one and the Canadian one. Others too? Probably as they'll have much the same requirements as the leading ones.
D'you think the Foundation would spend time and money reserving a registered test chamber to perform just the CE tests when there's worldwide demand to service? Now the production lines can leap into full spew mode and deluge the planet with Raspberry pi!
In case anyone's interested, the chamber referred to is fairly similar to this: http://www.flickr.com/photos/ethicsgradient/sets/72157606434322104/ which is the EM anechoic chamber at my old job. No cthulhu antenna but all the spikes you can eat.
There you go http://www.raspberrypi.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/mooncakehelpsout.jpg
(from a forum thread 'Pi's and small fuzzy animals. How will you keep them apart? ')
Your welcome.
When you build an ARM device like the Raspberry Pi, PandaBoard, does it include a BIOS or similar low level firmware?
cares? wft is up with all these 'Raspberry Pi' stories?
Then why did they keep pretending that they have people who are experienced in these things? This "charity" keeps telling the story differently every time. They know what they're doing, it's the first time. The official shop will be on their home page, you can't order from them at all. They'll ship worldwide from day one, their distributors refuse to sell to private individuals until the waiting queues are already months long. The distributors have 5000 boards each, the first 2000 boards have just arrived from the factory. The official distribution will probably be Ubuntu, Ubuntu doesn't support the CPU at all. Being a charity isn't an excuse for leading people on.
CE is a self certified stamp, you just say 'it passed' stick the CE label on it and that's it. What Raspberry Pi people have done wrong is to ACTUALLY PERFORM THE TESTS.
This is the first time I've actually heard of anyone doing that actual tests!
No, actually, the Beagleboard is not a "finished" consumer product as far as I know. That's the major difference between the two. Finished products for sale to consumers are subject to taxes, whereas partially assembled products are not to the same degree.
The CE certification is not an evil conspiracy at all, every major country in the world has this type of legislation and testing!
The CE mark is just a one-size-fits-all procedure. If you have it tested in any [approved] European lab it will be accepted in every other European market! You don't have to have it tested in every country in Europe to sell it there. Think of the huge savings!
If you're English or British I can understand your deep seated and unfounded skepticism of all things EU, but this is not one of them.
I'm sorry, I only know what I read on their website. As far as I can tell they're shipping them out as soon as possible subject to their certification papers being "approved" by the distributors in question. The CE certification itself is official and valid so there really is no reason for further delays.
How can you possibly hype vaporware if all your excuses errr... problems get solved so quickly !
Third? We're just one step below second. That's... blue, right?
I suppose it is what is called a high class problem that both vendors say they have sold out of RP.
I hope the next production run is bigger. These look like great little computers for so many possible projects.
it's backwards in Europe because of Coriolis forces.
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Their site http://www.raspberrypi.com/ has had the same "Down for Maintenance" message for at least a month. Is it actually possible to purchase one of these (in the US)?
I disagree. The fact that you can have it certified by one lab and have it accepted everywhere in Europe is not the issue. I don't really see why you object to that? That's a different matter from when and what products need to be certified. I fully understand your complaint in that regard.
I would hazard a guess at "we're covering our backs" is the real reason for the certification. Farnell and others probably didn't want to take any chances. I don't know who demanded what exactly but I did read as much on their blog.
It's helpful if you have some legal cover regardless. After all this is going to end up in schools and homes literally everywhere around the world. I would also rather do it just-in-case before something happens. The certification might not be necessary, but it sure is useful. As a "consumer" I don't mind it either.
The point being that CE certification and the mutual recognition is a good thing, when it applies another matter. The previous comment "attacked" it in general, which I find unreasonable. You wouldn't want to sell this device in the US without FCC approval either.
I see :) I suppose there will always be problems with this kind of legal framework, it's hard to create laws that are both capable and flexible.