Hello,

I am designing an LED board that is driven by Switching regulator(Buck) the Buck regulator frequency will be running anywhere between 200~ 300 Khz.

Now the board has to pass the conducted RF interference test and conform to the chart below.

Is it good idea to use Pi filter at the input ? What's a good design practice and how do i go about designing this filter so that i comply with the requirement in the chart?

Thank you

 

In order to know how to interpret the chart you need to know how the test is conducted. That would be a good starting point.

The units on the vertical axis are dBuA which I interpret as dB with respect to an RF reference current of 1 uA. Now 53 dB with respect to 1 uA is:

53 = 20 log(I/1uA)

53 / 20 = log(I/1uA)

10^(53/20) = I/1uA

446.7 uA = I

Not sure what that level of RF current will do to a switching regulator, but it will sure make the S-meter on my receiver head for the pin

Good luck in your quest

 

In order to know how to interpret the chart you need to know how the test is conducted. That would be a good starting point.

The units on the vertical axis are dBuA which I interpret as dB with respect to an RF reference current of 1 uA. Now 53 dB with respect to 1 uA is:

53 = 20 log(I/1uA)

53 / 20 = log(I/1uA)

10^(53/20) = I/1uA

446.7 uA = I

Not sure what that level of RF current will do to a switching regulator, but it will sure make the S-meter on my receiver head for the pin

Good luck in your quest

Thank you for the insight Papabravo. One way to know if the circuit complies is by going to an EMI lab and experiment. But I was hoping to get a guidance on how to select a filter that gets me close to the specs.

 

What I'm not sure about is the precise location for a filter. On our high end audio equipment we use a common mode chokes and shunt capacitors for the DC supply coming onto a board. Again without being able to look at a complete schematic it is really hard to advise you.

The common mode choke will pass low frequencies and the capacitor will shunt high frequencies to ground

 

More important than the filter is the Buck regulator design and layout. The Buck topology draws AC current and causes a lot of conducted noise. If possible try to keep your duty cycle away from 50% as that is the worst case and operate in CCM. Use shielded inductors and minimize current loop areas. Once you have optimized that then you look at the filter. A properly designed pi filter or 2-stage LC (LC+ 6L4C) is pretty common.

In order to know how to interpret the chart you need to know how the test is conducted. That would be a good starting point.

The RTCA DO-160 can be a rough test to pass. The set-up is usually a LISN and high-pass filter into a SpecAn