[sdiy] CE approval, was MOTM over time

[Jay Schwichtenberg]

CE is a tighter spec than FCC B (I think it's B for consumer stuff) testing.
Usually people in the US get CE certification which will be good enough and
say it's FCC certified. I may be wrong but if I remember right CE also
requires static testing (zap it with 20000 volts, smell the ozone, and hope
it still works) and FCC doesn't.

I had to help get cerification on some PC sound cards in the US. Anything
that has real digital in it can be considerably harder than straight analog
(low freq stuff < 10 mHz). Boy put a card in a PC with connectors sticking
out the back and things get really bad. You can spend thoushands of dollars
just getting a PC to pass with nothing in it for your test unit. The thing
is most of the stuff you get that is CE/FCC certified probably wouldn't pass
a test if you tested it. To get certification you have to have 1 unit pass
the test. In a lot of cases it was probably hand build, tweaked and the PCB
in production is different that what was tested.

Another issue is with UL in the US (forget what the Euro equivalent is). A
lot of products would probably never make it to market if they didn't use
wall warts or pre-made power supplies. The power supply people do the
testing and can distribute the cost over hundreds of thoushands of units.
The guy that is going to make something that sells small quanities wouldn't
be able to handle the PS design and cost of testing and then sell the
product at a profit.

Jay